Sunday, December 23, 2007

Dong Zhi (冬至) Dinner

Dong zhi 冬至 is a Chinese festival celebrating the winter solstice -'the Arrival of Winter'. It is usually celebrated on the 21st or 22nd of December, this day sees the shortest day in the year. It is also traditionally a time for the family to get together.
Yesterday we celebrated the Chinese festival with the family in Tet Mui's beautiful new home.
As usual, we had the most sumptuous traditional Chinese fare.

A must-have whole steamed chicken symbolizing completeness.

Kai lan with pacific clams, so yummy.

A delicious stewed pork trotters.

The most traditional Hakka's stuffed tofu...

and khiew yoke.

Tofu in a sweet sauce garnished with bonito flakes, spring onions and fried scallions.

Butter prawns

Egg pockets filled with mince meat.
Sticky Rice Ball 湯 圓 (Tang Yuan).

Tang Yuan is a traditional dessert made of glutinous rice that we must have on this day and also on Chinese new year's eve. Tang yuan symbolizes reunion. For us as a family, sharing tang yuan on these two auspicious days means unity and harmony.

This year, I actually made the tang yuan's filling of peanut butter plus black sesame from scratch and it was so good. We usually have it sweet, boiled in a broth of red dates, dried longans, rock sugar and slices of ginger.

Will let you have the recipe before the Chinese new year comes around, I hope.

Jo

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wooo, what fabulous dishes. Especially the pacific clam dish...looks to die for :-)

I had dinner with Iris' family but at the restaurant where the dishes just cannot match those shown in the post.

Then we went home to have the sticky rice balls, which Iris' mom made, extra extra tiny, and in various colours - red, white, blue, yellow, green and turquoise - quite a break from tradition but so festive nontheless. :-)

Cheers//

a feast, everyday said...

Wow, tts a great way to combine 'tong zhi' n Christmas celebration.