Menu for Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is just a few days away and I haven’t seriously think what I am cooking. I am expecting my in-laws troop that will be as many as 40 people on the 2nd day and my siblings on the 3rd day.

Actually I don’t need much planning because I am basically cooking the same stuffs year in, year out. My mom has passed on the legacy of Nyonya cooking to my sisters and I and therefore, what I dished out are usually ‘unique’ to my in-laws who are Hakka. Some past relations with a Cantonese mother of a certain ‘friend’ also gave me the skills of cooking Cantonese food.

A spread from last year CNY.

I have got ingredients for some of these foods and will be making more trips to the market these few days:

1) Combination of steamed waxed meats including sausages, waxed ducks and various types of meats; (Cantonese food)

2) Jiu Hoo Char (turnips with squids) which is predominantly Nyonya cooking;

3) Kiam Chye Ark or duck with salted vegetables;

4) Fish maw soup

5) Pig’s maw (stomach) soup

6) Kapitan curry chicken

7) Hoi See Fatt Choy (pig’s trotter with dried oysters and some black moss) – another Cantonese ‘must-have’ dish

8) Mix vege

9) Fried chicken (Malay style)

10) Sambal sotong (like those serve with nasi lemak)

11) Loh Bak (meat rolls) pre-made by my sister-in-law

12) Spring rolls

Now, my only dilemma is trying to be fair. LOL. I tend to serve better foods for my ‘side’, i.e. my siblings as there are fewer of them. So, I have to sort out from the above, what to cook on each day.