Chinese New Year Party

Why have one Chinese New Year feast when you can have two?

Last Saturday was spent feasting with friends at B's. G brought along a traditional Thai fish dip, tao jeow lon, made with fish fillets, coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, red onion and tamarind paste. A spoonful of this warmed creamy mixture was dolloped onto traditional prawn crackers (the prawniest I've had), and then topped with a few wedges of cooling peeled cucumber. A delicious combination.

Tao jeow lon Thai fish dip prawn crackers and cucumber

I brought along some goi cuon Vietnamese rice paper rolls, prawn ones and vegetarian ones with avocado, to accommodate dietary preferences. The humid weather wasn't particularly kind to the thin rice paper skins, but then neither was the CityRail trackwork disruption which meant a journey that involved three trains and a bus. Argh!

Goi cuon Vietnamese summer rolls with prawns

B and P provided the rest of the feast which was polished off by late afternoon. Good food and good company. A great end to this year's Chinese New Year celebrations.

Spring rolls

Satay chicken skewers on the barbecue

Chocolate coins and peanuts

Chicken satay skewers cooked

Fried noodles

Yee sang salad

Pouring on the sauce

Yee sang salad dressed and ready

Yee sang salad tossing with chopsticks (look at that height!)

Yee sang aftermath

Yee sang plated

Everyone digging in

Related GrabYourFork posts:
2007 Chinese New Year Festival Launch, Belmore Park
2007 Chinese New Year Festivities, Cabramatta
2007 Chinese New Year Parade
2007 Chinese New Year Markets, Chinatown
2007 Chinese New Year Feast

2006 Chinese New Year Parade
2006 Chinese New Year Markets
2006 Chinese New Year Eve: the build-up
2006 Chinese New Year Eve: the feast

2005 Chinese New Year Parade: Part I
2005 Chinese New Year Parade: Part II
2005 Chinese New Year Dragon Boat Races
2005 Chinese New Year Children's Fair
2005 Chinese New Year Chinatown History Tour
2005 Chinese New Year Chinatown Markets
2005 Chinese New Year Sze Yup Temple Tour

9 Comments:

At 2/27/2007 12:46 am, Anonymous said…

its 12.44am and you're making me hungry.....!
At 2/27/2007 8:24 am, Yvo Sin said…

Wow, that is so totally awesome. I want to do that! I've never heard of the "yee sang" salad, I'm going to ask my mom, maybe she has!
At 2/27/2007 11:54 am, PiCkLeS said…

so what's the salad made up of?
At 2/27/2007 3:07 pm, Anonymous said…

i want some.
At 2/27/2007 3:46 pm, Anonymous said…

Helen - Fyi just in case you didn't know (which is probably highly unlikely :)) The Korean place opposite the Interville(?) internet cafe at World Square (near the big bull) now has a small takeaway grill section. You can get what they call "Korean hot dogs", pancakes, and a few other snacky things. I got one of the hotdogs on the weekend and it was a strange experience. Deep fried, looked like a dagwood dog but tasted like a frankfurt in cake with a squiggle of tomato sauce on top.....

Y.
At 2/28/2007 5:16 am, Anonymous said…

Actually, Helen; the yee sang tradition is a Malaysian/Singaporean one, rather than Chinese, as such. It has made a foray into the Hong Kong Chinese New Year scene in recent years; albeit as something of a 'foreign' exotica. Most HKers still regard it with something of a snigger when mentioned. Moi, I love it. But only when there's loads of fish in it!
At 2/28/2007 8:22 am, Anonymous said…

Those summer rolls look perfectly summery! Wow what a feast Helen, you lucky thing!

(wouldn't let me sign in for some bizzare reason)
At 2/28/2007 10:55 am, Yvo Sin said…

Helen- it's probably a regional thing. I haven't really experienced much with salmon, particularly raw, in the "traditional" cuisine my parents brought us up with- I mean, we started having fried salmon steak as I got older, with a distinctly HK-inflected Western style mayonaise mixed with fruit cocktail (that is so HK-people-doing-Western-food) but other than that, salmon wasn't really part of the food. I'm sure it's a real tradition, I'm just really curious where it's from... off to Google I go ;) Thanks though, for bringing it front and center as that sounds fantastic and fun. And messy.
At 3/05/2007 3:07 am, DiveMummy said…

Sigh...note to self...must get invited to a Chinese NY feast in 2008....AG,as always your photos leave my mouth watering