Chinese New Year Eve's Eve's Dinner
so we had a chinese new year's eve reunion dinner on the eve of the eve because some of the people were going off to london for the actual eve... what started off as a dinner for 4 turned into a dinner of 16. yikes. so yes, loads of work and prep went into making the steamboat! we actually started on thurs by going to birmingham to the huge chinese supermarket Wing Yip to buy important stuff. like tofu, choy sum, wanton skins, hoisin sauce, lemongrass, water chestnuts... and some egg tarts as an indulgence. haha... 4 for GBP2.80. precious!
anyway, on friday josh and i went to coventry (or rather, he went to coventry market to buy squid, prawns, pork, beef, limes, chillis and some other stuff) while i joined him later after my class to go to hillfields in coventry to buy cheap chicken. hillfields is a dodgy area of coventry where there are a lot of muslims but it's got nice cheap stuff - we went to our sort-of-usual butcher to get cheap chickens. they were selling boiler chickens (i assume it's the sort of chicken for soups) at 4 for GBP5. so we got that and some chicken breasts, stocked up on corriander and garlic chinese cabbage before heading to tesco to buy mince.
from about 2.30, we were non-stop preparing for the dinner (with only one person, sau khoon, coming to help at about 5.45pm) until 7.30. josh made the soups - tom yum and chicken basically from scratch, sliced the beef, cleaned out the squid and marinated them and prawns while i did some wanton folding and pork ball rolling. which i tell you gives you a massive neckache because you are staring down for 1 hr at a time until you have finished all 60 wantons. and 99 pork balls. thank goodness we had one reinforcement who helped roll the beef balls and slice the pork and chicken breasts. and i made agar agar agar agar (haha! i didnt have a recipe so i just did some rough estimates) with almond flavouring which would be served with canned longan and lychees. mmmm...
finally managed to get people over at 7.30 to carry stuff over to the kitchen where we were going to have the actual dinner. and got the food cooking by 8.30-ish?
when we got there we diluted the concentrated soup stocks by splitting them into the different rice cookers which were to be our steamboat pots, while i blanched the fresh wanton noodles to rid them of the flour coating.
only took pictures of some of the raw food while waiting for the pots to be ready to cook them in... preparing for steamboat is damn tiring and makes you so tired you dont really feel like eating much... :( behold our pork balls and pork slices(marinated with hoisin sauce and some other stuff - josh has all written down somewhere)...
more pork balls! and in the bowl is the squid. yum... the squid took 1 hr to do because he had to defrost them and pull out the backbone and clean out the ink... :(
look at the pork balls! and the beef balls! and the sliced beef! (and canned mangosteen in the background)
prawns and veg! mmmm... prawns were like GBP10 per kg! but really nice because they were soooo fresh...
and yes! we had 4 pots of 16 people! 2 tom yum and 2 chicken... mmmmmm...
group picture! or somewhat of a group picture... poor josh was sick and really worn out by all the prep work he did the whole day...
and a girly picture! basically the meal was with first years - singaporean, malaysian, indonesian and bruneian/canadian (hehe...). they are such a cute/crazy bunch of people!
anyway, i've got another round of food to prepare next week because we are having a chinese new year celebratory dinner for cell on thurs. this time it will be for 19 people. argh... chinese new year IS stressful. but... ANTONIA IS COMING TO VISIT ME! yay! so it shall be a wonderful reunion. :)
anyway, on friday josh and i went to coventry (or rather, he went to coventry market to buy squid, prawns, pork, beef, limes, chillis and some other stuff) while i joined him later after my class to go to hillfields in coventry to buy cheap chicken. hillfields is a dodgy area of coventry where there are a lot of muslims but it's got nice cheap stuff - we went to our sort-of-usual butcher to get cheap chickens. they were selling boiler chickens (i assume it's the sort of chicken for soups) at 4 for GBP5. so we got that and some chicken breasts, stocked up on corriander and garlic chinese cabbage before heading to tesco to buy mince.
from about 2.30, we were non-stop preparing for the dinner (with only one person, sau khoon, coming to help at about 5.45pm) until 7.30. josh made the soups - tom yum and chicken basically from scratch, sliced the beef, cleaned out the squid and marinated them and prawns while i did some wanton folding and pork ball rolling. which i tell you gives you a massive neckache because you are staring down for 1 hr at a time until you have finished all 60 wantons. and 99 pork balls. thank goodness we had one reinforcement who helped roll the beef balls and slice the pork and chicken breasts. and i made agar agar agar agar (haha! i didnt have a recipe so i just did some rough estimates) with almond flavouring which would be served with canned longan and lychees. mmmm...
finally managed to get people over at 7.30 to carry stuff over to the kitchen where we were going to have the actual dinner. and got the food cooking by 8.30-ish?
when we got there we diluted the concentrated soup stocks by splitting them into the different rice cookers which were to be our steamboat pots, while i blanched the fresh wanton noodles to rid them of the flour coating.
only took pictures of some of the raw food while waiting for the pots to be ready to cook them in... preparing for steamboat is damn tiring and makes you so tired you dont really feel like eating much... :( behold our pork balls and pork slices(marinated with hoisin sauce and some other stuff - josh has all written down somewhere)...
more pork balls! and in the bowl is the squid. yum... the squid took 1 hr to do because he had to defrost them and pull out the backbone and clean out the ink... :(
look at the pork balls! and the beef balls! and the sliced beef! (and canned mangosteen in the background)
prawns and veg! mmmm... prawns were like GBP10 per kg! but really nice because they were soooo fresh...
and yes! we had 4 pots of 16 people! 2 tom yum and 2 chicken... mmmmmm... 
group picture! or somewhat of a group picture... poor josh was sick and really worn out by all the prep work he did the whole day... 
and a girly picture! basically the meal was with first years - singaporean, malaysian, indonesian and bruneian/canadian (hehe...). they are such a cute/crazy bunch of people!
anyway, i've got another round of food to prepare next week because we are having a chinese new year celebratory dinner for cell on thurs. this time it will be for 19 people. argh... chinese new year IS stressful. but... ANTONIA IS COMING TO VISIT ME! yay! so it shall be a wonderful reunion. :)
posted by ade at
11:58 pm
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