[Sca-cooks] OT: It's that time again...

[ekoogler1 at comcast.net]

Sounds wonderful, as usual.  And best wishes for the New Year to you and yours...and to all on the List.

Kiri
> Hullo, the list!
> 
> Well, folks, the Lunar New Year is almost upon us again (tomorrow at 
> sundown). As has become the custom here, I and sometimes others post 
> their menus (those who celebrate this holiday, anyway). This is my 
> somewhat reduced-labor version, largely comprised of dishes people 
> who follow these posts of mine have seen before:
> 
> New Year's Eve:
> 
> --Drunken Chicken (whole, poached, marinated in distilled rice wine, 
> served cold)
> --Fried Fish (2, whole, rolled in seasoned flour, fried, served but 
> not eaten until New Year's Day)
> --Steamed Lop Cheung, Sweet Chinese Sausages (again, 2 or multiple 
> thereof, at least 2 left uneaten for NYD)
> --Seared freshwater prawns (in shell) served with five-spice salt dip
> --Veg, probably bean sprouts since I have a big bag of them in house, 
> dry-sauteed w/ginger and garlic and just a splash of light soy
> --Steamed white rice
> --Fruit: for some strange reason, the navel oranges in the 
> stupidmarket look better than the ones in the Asian groceries I 
> checked. Those, plus our usual stockpile of longan and lichee.
> 
> New Year's Day:
> 
> --Soy Sauce Chicken Wings (normally we make whole birds and they tend 
> not to get eaten, in part because some people have trouble with 
> chopsticks and the traditional hacked-through-skin-and-bone 
> presentation, so it is now finger food)
> --Steamed Juicy Buns (amazing to relate, we have finally found a 
> frozen version of these that we actually like, and we've figured out 
> that restaurants overcook these and then manhandle them, which is why 
> they're never juicy unless you make them, carefully, at home, or go 
> to a restaurant that specializes in Shanghai cuisine, where such buns 
> are taken more seriously -- but they look like little drawstring 
> money-pouches, so we figured they might be appropriate in this *ahem* 
> improving economy)
> --Cilantro Soup (basically, egg-drop soup with large amounts of 
> cilantro leaves and scallions stirred in, plus bits of marinated pork 
> or beef)
> --Twice-Cooked Pork (braised pork belly, chilled and thinly sliced, 
> stir-fried in a bean paste/chili sauce)
> --Cold prawns from New Year's Eve
> --Even More Drunken Chicken, from previous evening
> --More Steamed Lop Cheung (sausages)
> --Fried Fish from New Year's Eve (I may make a sweet-and-sour sauce 
> with vinegar and sugar, a little cornstarch thickening, a can of 
> ginger pickles, sliced sweet gherkins, and pineapple)
> --Jai, a.k.a. Buddhist Delight (bean thread noodles, lotus root, 
> black mushrooms, scallions, bean sprouts, snow peas, and bean curd, 
> sauteed and sauced with oyster sauce)
> --Stuffed Shrimp, wrapped in bacon and fried (I may cheat and do what 
> a lot of dim-sum houses do, chop the shrimp to make the stuffing, 
> make balls of the mixture and wrap those in bacon -- oddly enough, 
> often served with mayo)
> --Iron Steak with black mushrooms (little, pounded, flank-steak 
> scalloppine -- alleged to look like a flat-iron -- tenderized with a 
> pinch of baking soda, seared and served with sauteed black mushrooms 
> in oyster sauce gravy.
> --Assorted pickles, Our Famous All-You-Can-Heat Chili Sauce Bar -- I 
> usually serve several chili sauces, and try new ones each year), 
> fruits, nuts, candies, etc.
> 
> In addition to Pu Erh, Lok On, and Iron Goddess of Mercy teas (plus 
> several others I won't bother with unless requested), we have the 
> usual assortment of dumb bubbly sweet beverages some people like, and 
> we have a couple bottles of champagne and I just located about eight 
> bottles of rather old sack mead (I'm thinking this started life as 
> Flieg Mead, aged about three years before we turned it into Sack 
> Mead, about five years ago...).
> 
> As usual, I tend to be absent from e-mail and phone contact, as of 
> tomorrow evening, through the following sundown, at least. May you 
> all have a wonderful New Year (we will be entering the Year of the 
> Monkey)!
> 
> Adamantius
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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