[Sca-cooks] OOP - It's that time again/Lunar New Year

[Elaine Koogler]

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> Hullo, the list!
>
> Once again, the Lunar New Year is rolling around on the git-tar, and 
> I'm posting my tentative menus for Tuesday night, which is the new 
> moon ringing in the Year of the Cock, (commonly known around here, 
> inaccurately, as New Year's Eve), and for Wednesday afternoon/evening 
> -- commonly but erroneously known as New Year's Day, being in fact 
> sundown of New Year's Day, which started the night before.
>
> We're not doing anything unusual this year, so most of this will 
> probably be familiar to some of you, if from nowhere else, from 
> previous years' posts here. As usual, some of the food is for ritual 
> purposes (the ritual consisting mostly of cooking and eating the food 
> at the appropriate time). Here goes:
>
> Tuesday night --
>
>     2 plain, whole fish, rolled in seasoned flour and pan-fried in wok 
> -- probably white perch (eaten the next day)
>
>     2 steamed lop cheung, sweet Chinese pork sausages -- should be 
> eaten the next day, we cook extra in multiples of two because 
> offspring is lop cheung fiend
>
>     Plain, blanched leafy vegetable, whatever looks good at the 
> market, and can be cooked without chopping, such as bok toy, Chinese 
> broccoli (which looks like broccoli-rabe, only sweeter), etc.
>
>     White-cut chicken, poached with gin, served just warm with 
> ginger-scallion dipping oil
>
>     Five-spice beef, usually a boned piece of shin, braised in dark 
> soy with sherry and five-spice, served cold in thin slices with 
> dipping sauces
>
>     Plain dry-sauteed small shrimp (i.e., sans gravy), with ginger, 
> scallion, and red pepper flakes
>
>     Winter Melon Soup, stock made from chicken and pork bones, and 
> shrimp shells, with black mushrooms, dried shrimp, and pork meatballs 
> in the finished soup
>
>     Steamed rice
>
>     Fruit -- blood oranges, probably canned longans in syrup
>
>     Will probably open the bottle of Dom Perignon that's been sitting 
> in the fridge, perry for da kid. The Kitchen God will get a libation 
> (a.k.a. The Prophet Elijah) in a Scottish silver quaich of 21-year-old 
> Laphroaig malt whisky.
>
>     Whatever Chinese tea I feel like making
>
>
>
> Wednesday evening --
>
>     Soy Sauce Chicken - Braised in dark soy sauce, five spice mixture, 
> tangerine peel
>
>     Winter Melon Soup from previous evening
>
>     White-Cut Chicken from previous evening
>
>     Five-Spice Beef from previous evening
>
>     Shredded smoked duck and/or pheasant (we have them sitting in the 
> fridge), sauteed with pine nuts and hoisin sauce, served warm, wrapped 
> in lettuce leaves
>
>     Whole monster prawns, dry-sauteed, served on top of lobster sauce 
> (IOW, the sauce for Lobster Cantonese: oyster-sauce gravy, enriched 
> with sauteed ground pork, fermented black beans, ginger, garlic 
> slices, scallions, chili flakes, and beaten egg)
>
>     Jai, a.k.a. Buddhist Delight, mixed [in this case] shredded 
> vegetables, cellophane noodles and dried bean curd, cooked previously, 
> then when cold, wrapped into Spring Rolls and fried
>
>     Sauteed Flatiron steak braised with onion and black mushrooms -- 
> tenderized, pounded flank steak, like Chinese Chicken Fried Steak 
> chunks, seared and braised with a brown sauce, with sauteed black 
> mushrooms and fanned onion slices
>
>     Fried fish from previous evening -- may make a sweet-and-sour 
> sauce with sweet mixed ginger pickle, pineapple, etc.
>
>     Steamed Sausages from previous evening
>
>     Twice-Cooked Pork -- pork belly with its rind, simmered until 
> tender, boned, cooled, sliced thin and stir-fried till slightly crispy 
> with a chili/brown bean paste glaze
>
>     More steamed rice
>
>     Fruit
>
>     More tea -- I have some Iron Goddess of Mercy tea -- a whole-leaf, 
> very pale, but allegedly black tea, very rich, to be sipped in small 
> cups, not for a caffeine fix when hung over
>
>     Assorted home brew, some of that too-sweet bubbly stuff kids 
> insist on drinking, more perry
>
>
> The management wishes to remind you this is a tentative menu, and 
> subject to change without advance notice...
>
> Happy New Year to all!
>
> Adamantius, who will be off-line most of Tuesday and Wednesday, as usual
>
And, once again, my mouth is watering...I'm thinking of cashing in my 
AMEX points to get a train ticket!

Kiri