Kiam chye th'ng (salted vegetable soup)

This is our family's traditional CNY soup which we have throughout the first few days of CNY ! ! Adding whatever left over dishes along the way. When a friend gave me some roasted pork it was an opportunity to make this soup, with the roast pork added to salted mustard green, duck legs, Chinese mushrooms.

And since the same friend didn't manage to get home for CNY this year, I thought it appropriate to make this soup and invite her round for a CNY dinner! Gong xi fa cai take 2!!

 

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Crispy kale chips

There has been an abundance of kale in the garden and to keep up with the rate the vegetables were growing, I have started to distribute them to friends and neighbours. One of my friends came back with a superb way of using up the kale which is to simply oven bake them with a light seasoning of salt and sugar. Within 10 minutes, I had a plate of crispy crunchy kale to munch on while watching tv, just a touch healthier than potato chips!

 

Potato salad

This is no simple potato salad, it's got more ingredients than a usual potato salad. The little extras means that the amount of mayonnaise used is less and the overall taste is much lighter and yet has more depth! What's great is that this is a side that can be prepared ahead of time, leaving more time to either cook the main dishes or relaxing before dinner is served, in this case the potato salad is served with homemade turkey burgers in homemade bread, sorry to say the leafy salad and tomatoes were not home grown!

 

Chai Kueh

One of my favourite kuih from Penang is the Chai Kueh, translated it basically means vegetable 'snack', I have yet to find an accurate translation for the word kuih/kueh to English. Anyway back to this kueh, as 'seng kuang' is a rarity here, I was experimenting with waterchestnuts, it turned out to be a good substitute, only caution would be that it remains cruchier and is sweeter after cooking so the amount has to be slightly reduced. My chai kueh turned out pretty good I must say... translucent chewy skin but not rubbery, if you get what I mean. Dunked in chilli sauce, they are lovely little morsels!

Steamed in authentic bamboo steamer

My version is a simple mix of carrots and waterchestnuts

Rhubarb and Orange crumble

In trying to keep up with the abundance of rhubarb from the garden, we have another rhubarb dish. This time it is the good ole crumble, admittedly I'm not a fan but the classic must be attempted and attempted I did! Eaten with a large helping of custard ...errr, store bought I'm afraid as the crumble was made late at night and I was not going to be stirring the pot making custard. Next in the rhubarb series I think will be a jam, that way, I can use up more of the rhubarb.

Pre-custard, photos with the custard made it look rather unappertising

Ginger Beef and Asparagus stir fry

If you like ginger then this is the dish for you. Slivers of ginger are fried till golden and fragrant then seasoned beef and asparagus is added. Stir-fry for a few minutes till the asparagus cooks to the desired 'crunch', dish up and serve with steamed rice...delicious! I like to eat this dish with chopsticks and rice served in a bowl, a strange quirk but somehow it tastes better this way!

KangKung Belacan

Ooooohh! simply delicious is what this dish is! Spicy, slightly salty and smells great!! At least that is how an asian palate would interprete this dish. For the un-initiated, belacan might smell a tad offensive! Anyway, when I got my hands on a bunch of kangkung from the chinese supermarket, who cares what the neighbouts will think, out comes the belacan and in two ticks, heaven on a plate! yumms!

Cucumber Acar

This is not quite an acar but more like a very basic salsa. Normally served as a side dish with nasi kandar as it helps to refresh and cool the palate. So goes down really well with hot and spicy food. I made mine to go with my beef rendang.

Great eaten with Beef Rendang and Nasi Tomato

Tau Cheong Bitter Gourd

Bitter Gourd is one of my favourite vegetable, not something that I would likely have in common with most people! It has a most distinct bitter taste hence the name..why else??!! Most people tend to avoid it but it does have health benefits e.g. drinking bitter gourd tea tends to lower high cholesterol levels as to wether its a long term solution or not you need to do your own research, I eat it because I do enjoy the bitter taste!

The indians have lovely recipes for this vegetable but this time I decided to make use of the tau cheong (fermented soya beans) thats been sat in the fridge for almost more than a year! So this is my Stir Fried Bitter Gourd with Tau Cheong, delicious with hot steamy rice :-)

Mixed vegetables

Although this is a simple dish in itself, it is part of the Chinese New Year menu that we have every year at home. The CNY lunch (reunion dinner is steamboat) is cooked by my eldest aunt. The dish is cooked and eaten for first 2 days and then what's left is dumped into the 'Kiam Chai Th'ng'. So the year that I did not go home for CNY, I recreated my aunt's dishes just for the 'home for new year' feeling but really I wanted to eat 'Kiam Chai Th'ng' and wanted it to taste authentic with 'leftovers' in the mix!