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No-fuss feasting
NOT everybody fancies the idea of trekking to a crowded restaurant to eat the same assembly line reunion meal. But when cooking at home is not an option, then takeaway is the next best thing. With so many choices around, though, what do you pick if you don't want the ubiquitous treasure pot on your table? We sift through the festive largesse and come up with a few choice selections:
IF you've always wondered why people don't dispense with the vegetables and just serve the raw fish instead, you can either just have your reunion dinner at a Japanese restaurant or do a sashimi yusheng takeaway ($30 to $100) from Xi Yan, the Hong Kong-based boutique restaurant. The cult eatery, which used to be a private, reservations-only restaurant, now opens to individual diners and has also just launched its gourmet takeaway menu in time for Chinese New Year. Its yusheng features a pile of sashimi slices - salmon, octopus, whitefish and salmon roe - that you toss with shredded vegetables as well as green salad leaves and bell peppers in an olive oil and kumquat dressing. If you're a traditionalist, you're not going to like this, but if you prefer a lighter, tangy taste that isn't cloyingly sweet - not to mention the healthier olive oil - this is a good bet. In addition, Xi Yan offers a range of takeaway dishes that are also served in the restaurant like dong po pork belly, crispy xiangsu duck with glutinous rice, and house specials like greenhouse tomatoes in wasabi sauce and the intriguing 'salivating' chicken with century eggs.
MELT in the mouth whole pig's trotter is double-braised with succulent baby abalone mushrooms and a fistful of black moss (fatt choi) in a golden-brown gravy with added whole chestnuts and garlic. The skin and fat break away with little effort, leaving you with moist tender flesh swimming in tasty gravy. Priced at $68++ and serves six. Claypot rice
Restaurants are more likely to serve it as a dine-in option rather than a take-away, but Cherry Garden will do it for you upon request at $98++, inclusive of the clay pot. Fragrant smoky rice is topped with thin slices of air dried Chinese pork and liver sausages, waxed duck and preserved pork belly, along with Chinese mushrooms and kailan. Drizzle some of the tasty sauce provided and you've got a homey, unpretentious dish that warms the heart.
IF your idea of a reunion dinner is to get down and get messy, check out this baked golden ingot from Peony Jade restaurant that requires some hefty mallet work in order to break open the hard crust, revealing a deliciously fragrant braised pork knuckle with dried oysters, conpoy and shiitake mushrooms. Safely wrapped in plastic and foil, there's no chance of getting any of the yellow crust in your food - just meltingly soft meat and accompaniments. Priced at $138++, it serves six.
THE size of the claypot is enough to make an impression: inside this humongous vessel is an entire caramel-coloured duck - sans drumsticks - completely deboned and stuffed with eight treasures: barley, black moss, sea cucumber, dried scallops, lingzhi mushrooms, flower mushrooms, chestnuts and water chestnuts. The stuffing fills up the body cavity of the duck nicely and when you cut into it - with barely any effort - the skin yields to release chewy barley and its chopped up accompaniments, which are barely discernible but form a tasty, almost healthy stuffing. Even the generous broccoli florets sitting in the brown gravy are still crunchy - and because it's not as rich as say, braised pork belly, it's a fairly healthy choice. Priced at $138++ and serves 6. St Julien takeaway pack
WHAT is Julien Bompard doing, creating a takeaway reunion dinner? If you decide to boycott the relatives in favour of a cosy reunion with your significant other, or if you're not celebrating the Lunar New Year and have nowhere to eat on New Year's Eve, then check out his party pack for two people which incorporates his tasty take on Chinese food. The pretty takeaway box has individual plastic compartments decorated with gold 'coins' and red packets, and packs a four-course meal. Start off with crunchy kailan and baby abalone salad in a slightly spicy, oyster sauce-based dressing that's quite addictive. His Chinese chefs have also come up with a super-tender braised pork belly that tastes like dong po pork but with a sweetish apple flavour, with a side of thinly sliced cucumber and mushrooms. And if cheese in a Chinese-influenced meal sounds positively freaky, it's not when you get a delicious trio of cheese dips - blue cheese with Chinese wine, goat's cheese with a jam-like pineapple topping and mild brie with wafer-thin slices of abalone and truffle. With the bag of home made crackers, the cheese is sweet, savoury and delicious. But for a real dessert, there's chocolate and pineapple parfait with sauce anglaise - a light and successful combination. The purists might freak out, but in the spirit of innovation, this is pretty cool. Priced at $128++ for two.
THIS is one golden ingot you don't have to lay a hammer on. This ingot-shaped butter almond cake gets extra flavour from armagnac-infused persimmons and is topped with wafer-thin sliced caramelised persimmons. This golden nugget prosperity cake is priced at $68 per kg.
FOR a bit of cute Lunar New Year gazing, why not eyeball this whimsical marzipan cow draped over a chocolate and walnut butter cake? Freshly Baked by Le Bijoux comes out with cartoony designs every year, and this is no exception. And if you want some home-baked goodness to serve your guests, baker Audrey Tan's got a range of old-fashioned cashew, cornflake and walnut cookies, as well as her popular pineapple tarts. The ox cake is priced at $38, while cookies start from $16 a bottle.
IT looks mighty pretty and prosperous with its elaborate 'headgear' of two fortune fish fashioned out of marzipan but what you really want to do is scrape off all the embellishments - along with the cloyingly sweet jam that adheres the marzipan to the cake - and just enjoy the simple buttery taste of the orange pound cake that forms the base of this New Year creation by Goodwood Park Hotel. The orange scent may be a little too artificially enhanced but the flavour and crumb of the cake will satisfy those with an aversion to mousse and ganache. Priced at $48 per kg.
FOR a change from the ubiquitous niangao, Cherry Garden has created a unique and very satisfying dessert of steamed red bean sponge cake - white, chewy sponge layered with red bean paste and speckled with red beans. It's not very sweet and the red bean paste and sponge are a nice combination. Apparently, the cake originates in Zhejiang province in China, and was a favourite of Soong May Lin, the youngest of the Soong sisters. Priced at $26, it comes in its own bamboo steamer. This article was first published in The Business Times on Jan 17, 2009. |
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Yusheng
Braised pork trotters
THE treasure pot filled with abalone, sea cucumber, conpoy and all things brown and expensive may be de rigueur at this time of year, but if you want authenticity, why not a typical winter dish like lap mei fan or claypot rice with traditional waxed meats?
Golden ingot
Braised 8-treasure duck
Golden nugget persimmon cake
Ox cake
Orange pound cake
Steamed sponge cake