Sunday, March 11, 2007

CNY is over

Chinese New Year just ended last Sunday, so no more indulgence of food for me anymore. I have to really concentrate on losing my belly because friends who hadn’t seen for a long time, complained that I put on weight, hehe! Say is easy than be done, trying my best at pilates classes.

On Feb 18th 2007 was the first day of CNY. My mom invited her side of relatives over to our one year old flat in Sengkeng for family gathering. Of course, the usual questions like am I working or dating which are the usual questions that turn me off. What to do, usually you seldom see your relatives and those are the usual questions to create conversations to break the ice.

Being overseas for the past two years and having CNY out of Singapore was one of the best thing happened to me in CNY in my life so far. It was fun and crazy, compared spending the occasion with boring relatives. Through being out there, I realise that there are certain things of practices of CNY are different in Singapore and other Chinese out of Singapore.

Like for example, only Singaporeans visit relatives or friends with two mandarin oranges as a form of wishing of the best. It is a practice as important as red packets. And the host who received the oranges, have to in return give back the guest another two.

Another significant CNY item is Yu Sheng. And we have this activity called lo hei. At first, I thought Cantonese from other countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia or China or even Chinese from Taiwan practices Lo Hei, I only realise last year that they don’t even know what is that.It’s Cantonese and it was designed in the 50s by famous 4 Singaporean chefs. This dish was inspired by a china dish which I can hardly remember that it was from whichever canton. But lo hei become a very auspicious dish in Singapore as Chinese has this popular praise, which means every year there will be fishes (food). While doing lo hei, usually there is 8 to 10 items in the plate as 8, 9 or 10 are auspicious numbers. Yu Sheng is an appetizer. It is a cold dish added with some sour and sweet sauce to build your appetite before the main course.



2 comments:

ahwoo2 said...

I remember Yu Sheng! Yum! Don't think I'll ever have that again because no one knows how to make it in Taiwan...

KimberlynQ said...

It's easy and best of all, its a cold dish, you don't have to cook. All you need is a packet of jellyfish (inside there r the sauces you need, like sesame oil and some sour sweet sauce), smoked or raw salmon, shredded radish and carrot, crackers (with a bit of a spicy flavour), sesame seeds, you can add mashed peanuts too, abalone if you want too as well, one lemon, add bits of spring onions and coriander for colour and flavour. You can do your own sauce too, just add substanial amt of plum sauce, sugar and ketchup with sesame oil and a little zest of lemon and stir. You can do for normal days as salad consumption, you don't have to wait till like new year like us, hehe!