Happy New Year!

A belated Happy New Year to one and all! May all your dreams, hopes and aspirations find fulfillment in the coming year! It is also my wish that our world may find much peace, compassion, love and tolerance in 2004.

We stayed in for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. It has become a habit of sorts over the last few years. Somehow, it just seems to take too much energy to brave the traffic, the crowds, the heat, the humidity, the frayed nerves (not necessarily our own) and this year, the additional security checks too, for that 10 second countdown at midnight. We now much prefer to gather a small intimate group of family and friends at home, and enjoy, in comfort, good food, fine wine and scintillating company. Maybe its age (haha), but it just seems a much nicer and more meaningful way to send off the year that was, and to ring in all that is bright, new and exciting.

I had planned to cook New Year’s Eve dinner, but was feeling under the weather that day. The previous few weeks of indulgence (or more accurately, over-indulgence?!) had obviously caught up with me. So much for convincing myself that too much of a good thing is, well, a good thing. I ended up spending most of the afternoon sleeping. My mum (bless her heart) very kindly and very efficiently picked up the slack. Sigh! Where would I be without mum? She is just so sweet. And so, thankfully all of us did not end up spending New Year’s Eve chowing down on ordered-in fast food! Everyone was very nicely fed with…

• Homemade soup: sharks’ fin in double boiled chicken soup. [This was already on the menu, and was my mum’s original contribution. I personally wouldn’t cook this, as I would rather sharks’ fins no longer be eaten at all…]

• Steamed whole red snapper. [Fish is a must – in our family and in a lot of Chinese families – on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day (of both the Gregorian and Lunar Calendar). “Yu” (fish) in Chinese sounds like the word for abundance and prosperity, and so it is considered of auspicious significance to serve fish on the last day of the old year and the first day of the new, to symbolize the continuation of abundance from one year into the next. We also try to ensure that enough food is cooked on New Year’s Eve that there will be some leftovers for New Year’s Day, to signify the continuation of abundant food from one year into the next. Ah! The little “traditions” that are quirky yet heart-warming.]

• Braised soy sauce pork tenderloin.

• Gado-Gado. A salad of Indonesian origins, it is usually made up of various ingredients like tempeh (fermented soy), various vegetables, pineapple, keropok (prawn crackers), lontong (grilled coconut rice) and topped with a thick, rich, spicy peanut gravy. My mum and I have, over time, come up with our own different versions of this. This is another incredibly versatile dish. All sorts of interesting combinations of ingredients can be used. We have made the salad with different combinations and permutations of: tau kwa (pressed firm tofu), tempeh, beansprouts, long beans, cucumber, chicken, prawns, beef and whatever else that we might think appropriate at the time. Our New Year’s Eve version, being a last minute addition, was kept very simple: cucumber, ketupat (Malay coconut rice wrapped in a basket weaved from coconut leaves and steamed), diced chicken and prawns. All topped with the rich, spicy peanut gravy.

We usually prefer to use Japanese cucumber for their greener green, crunchier crunch and crispier crispiness. But these normal cucumbers taste fine, just not as eye-appealing.

• Stir-fried Chinese leeks. [Another “must” for New Year’s. This is a seasonal vegetable and only available around the Chinese New Year period. It is called “suan” in Chinese, sounding like the word “to count”, signifying progress, growth and prosperity again.]

• Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Served with vanilla wafers, chopped roasted almonds and home-made chocolate fudge sauce.

Yeah, I know, there is a distinct lack of pictures in this post… sorry, I really wasn’t in the mood for picture taking that evening…

However, everyone clearly enjoyed the food, and we had a wonderful count-down to 2004!

Here’s to a great 2004!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
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