Chinese New Year Menu (2011)

Happy Chinese New Year!

To celebrate, our family will be dining at Fisherman's Terrace tonight. However, we also had a party at home last night (New Year's Eve), inviting friends and family/relatives.


Our Chinese New Year Menu
(This will be one of those "ugly pictures, good food" kind of moments.)

Dumplings


TS:
Dumplings are supposed to resemble gold ingots, and hence, are good to serve during New Year dinners. We did two types: a plain one with a soy sauce-based dipping sauce, and another with Sichuan chile oil sauce.

Recipe:

Sichuan "Crossed Hands" Wonton Dumplings, Two Ways

Red-Braised Pork



TS:
I don't know what this dish is supposed to represent. It just happens to be delicious and popular. =)

Recipe:
Mao's Hunan Red-Braised Pork (毛氏紅燒肉)



Noodles: Pancit Canton


TS:
Of course, the Chinese New Year table has to have noodles to symbolize long life.

This is one of CSC's absolute favoritest dishes. Just the mention of "pancit canton" lights up her face and sets her eyes a-twinkling.

We have previously mentioned that we always make a humongo batch of pancit canton. Well, for this party, it was even more humongo than usual!



TS:
Yup, we used this whopping 18QT pot. And, there were barely any leftovers!

Recipe: Pancit Canton (Philippine Braised Egg Noodles)

Whole Chicken


TS:
Hmm, it seems impossible to make this dish look good in photographs.

This is simply whole chickens poached with leeks and shiitake mushrooms, served in its own broth. Oh, for interest, I made the standard Chinese ginger and green onion sauce to serve alongside.



TS:
When serving chicken for New Year's dinner, one has to serve the chicken whole to symbolize togetherness. There's the proof above: the chicken feet are still attached to the chicken bodies!

Mussels: Baked Tahong


TS:
Clams and mussels are supposed to resemble coins (money, in other words). Of course we would want them on the table!

We decided to make the Filipino/Philippine classic, Baked Tahong. Mussels are topped with garlic butter and cheese, then baked. The aroma when they came out of the oven was swoonworthy!

Recipe:

Baked Tahong (Mussels)

Vegetable: Braised Napa Cabbage with Abalone


TS:
This is one of those dishes with a "subtle, yet profound" taste profile.

A Chinese meal won't be complete without vegetables. We were also going to cook a broccoli dish, but did not have time. We had to pump this out quick!

We braised some napa cabbage in stock until soft, then simply used canned sliced abalone. The stock was then thickened slightly with cornstarch slurry.

That's it!

Shrimp: Shrimp and Walnut with Honey Mayonnaise


TS:
In Cantonese, at least, the word for "shrimp" sounds like "ha". Hence, it is quite nice to have a lot of "ha ha ha" when celebrating the coming new year. =D

This is our ghetto take on the restaurant dish of honey walnuts and shrimp with mayonnaise sauce.

In my much simpler version, I toasted the walnuts first. Then, I cooked the shrimp (seasoning them as I did) and set them aside. I made sure the pan I used was dry before proceeding. I heated some oil, added the walnuts and honey, stirring them round. Next, the mayonnaise went in. When they were well-mixed, I turned off the heat and added the shrimp back. I stirred until everything was well-coated.

This dish is so popular that even my poor-man's version went fast!

Whole Fish


TS:
Last, but certainly not the least, whole fish!

For me, there is nothing like Cantonese-style steamed whole fish. And so that's what we made. In this case, we used tilapia because that was the only fish available live at the Chinese supermarket.

Needless to say, one has to serve the fish whole!

Why serve fish, you may ask? Let me show you this sign at the Chinese supermarket which offers the explanation:


"The pronunciation of FISH in Chinese is as surplus which implies surplus of wealth."

TS:
To make this, we lay the fish on a little julienned ginger and sprinkled them with a little bit of coarse salt. I topped them with more julienned ginger, then some yellow chives. A little splash of Shaoxing wine, and the dish was covered with plastic wrap and microwaved for about 8 to 10 minutes.

Yes, you read right! This was simply microwaved. Easy.

In the meantime, I heated a small pot with a little bit of peanut oil and in a small bowl, added sugar, Shaoxing wine and sesame oil to soy sauce.

Instead of the usual green onions and cilantro, we opted to use yellow chives. So, when the fish finished steaming, I topped them with the tender portion of the yellow chives, then poured the hot oil over them. Sizzle! The soy sauce mixture was poured in next.

And that's our Chinese New Year menu!

Once again, Happy New Year to all!

We are off to Fisherman's Terrace to have professionals cook for us! What to have? Peking duck? Whole steamed fish? Crab or lobster?

Stuffed "Muffuletta" Flank Steak

TS:
Oh my, it's been a while since we last surfaced! So yeah, belated Happy New Year to all! ;D



TS:
Some of you may remember the muffuletta we made about two years ago. (Wow, it's been that long?!)

Oh, wait, you don't?



TS:
That towering muffuletta sandwich has salami, mortadella, Provolone cheese, and most importantly, an "olive salad".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffuletta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Grocery

The mere thought of that olive salad is enough to make my mouth water.



TS:
I mean, just look at that! The olive salad is a mixture of green olives, black olives, roasted bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, some garlic, some dried oregano, lemon juice and olive oil. Oh, and some parsley too.



TS:
So, when we had some flank steak sitting in the fridge, we thought, "Why not stuff it with the muffuletta flavors that we love?" And so we did.




TS:
I semi-butterflied the flank to even out the thickness, then layered a few pieces of salami, mortadella and Provolone cheese near one end. A generous amount of olive salad went on top of those ingredients, then I rolled the beef and tied it up.

My first attempt at butterflying flank steak resulted in some tears and such. Oops.



TS:
I seared the outside of the rolled flank, then finished it in the oven. As you can see, the Provolone oozed out a bit from the tears in the meat. But, no biggie.



TS:
We already know we love these muffuletta flavors, so it was no surprise that this dish was a success! Really, that olive salad is killer.

One little flank like that did not actually last until dinnertime; we treated it as an afternoon snack.

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Recipe
Stuffed "Muffuletta" Flank Steak

1 piece flank steak
salami, sliced
mortadella, sliced
Provolone cheese, sliced
olive salad (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350F/374F.

Butterfly and/or pound the flank steak until even in width. Place slices of Provolone cheese, salami and mortadella near one end of the steak. Spread the olive salad (use as much or as little as you wish) on top of the other stuffing ingredients. Roll flank steak and tie with butcher's twine to make a roast.

Heat a pan over high heat, add a little bit of oil and sear the flank roast on all sides until brown. Place browned roast in the preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes, or until desired doneness.

Let sit for a few minutes, slice, and serve.

Olive Salad
part of the Muffuletta recipe in America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

1 cup green olives, pitted and chopped
1 cup black olives, pitted and chopped
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces jarred roasted red peppers, drained and chopped (1/2 cup)
4 ounces oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped (1/2 cup)
1/4 cup minced parsley
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 garlic clove, minced

Mix, cover and refrigerate (8 to 24 hours).

Chayote and Bean Thread Vermicelli with Mussel Coconut "Bisque" Sauce

TS:
A while, while, while back, we had a party. Besides numerous other dishes (of course), we also cooked off 8 pounds of mussels à la Congolaise.

I don't exactly know how these flavors are Congolese. We had seen this descriptor on a local restaurant's menu for a dish cooked with tomatoes, coconut milk/cream, "smoky chili" and citrus.

Congolese? Really?



TS:
Congolese or not, the flavors work.

So, I sautéed some onions and garlic along with tomato paste until the tomato paste was nicely cooked.

I may or may not have added a little bit of smoked paprika as well.

Then, I poured in some white wine and after a little bit, coconut milk.

The 8 pounds of mussels jumped into the creamy pool.

When they were cooked, I finished the whole thing with just a little squeeze of lime juice, and a generous amount of cilantro.



TS:
Why am I going on and on about mussels when this dish doesn't seem to have a mussel in sight?

After the guests had left, I noticed the serving bowl was devoid of mussels, but filled with the "Congolaise" sauce. As you may have already imagined, cooking 8 pounds of mussels will yield you quite a lot of exquisite mussel liqueur.

I couldn't waste that!

This was pure shellfish-y gold. It was so rich and flavorful that I had to christen it a "bisque".



TS:
What to do? What to do?

Wanting to do something different with some chayote on our counter besides our usual, I got to thinking and set to work.



TS:
I brought the mussel-infused coconut-tomato "bisque" to a boil then a simmer, reducing it somewhat, then dumped in my peeled chayote batons.



TS:
It seemed to me, though, that I still was not taking full advantage of the broth-y goodness in the pot.

Noodles! That's what this needs. Taking the path of least resistance, I opted for bean thread vermicelli. No pre-cooking required. I just placed them in the pot until they were cooked. A few minutes, tops.



TS:
With the bean thread vermicelli, this dish seemed to have taken a decidedly Asian turn.



TS:
So, why not use up the rest of the culantro, aka saw-tooth herb, aka ngo gai, aka Mexican cilantro, that I still had leftover from making Pho Ga (Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup)?



TS:
For a dish of dubious origins and muddled pedigree, this was absolutely mind-blowing!

The "bisque" was so rich and satisfying -- I do not know how that amount of liquid could have packed that much wallop of mussel-tomato-coconut flavor.

I love chayote and having it in this new, unusual way was a delight. The bean thread noodles absorbed all that bisque-y goodness and the culantro gave the dish a bright, verdant flavor.



TS:
The moral of the story: next time you have mussel liqueur from 8 pounds of mussels, you know what to do. ;)

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