Lovely DIY Valentine's Dinner

Valentine= lover's day. Lover's day= love. Love= passion. So, passion= passion fruits?
Yeah, that is how i got the idea on my Valentine's Dinner menu.

Old couples might say: "Everyday is our Valentine's day. We can celebrate everyday at anytime."

But i still hope to prepare something special on this special day.

Seriously this is the first time i cook salmon, especially grilled salmon. But no fear as i did some homework before buying ingredients, on what ingredients mix with fish the best, how to grill, ingredients to season fish, and how to garnish my cooking.

Here is my menu:


Main dish: Grilled Salmon with Herbs (Thyme)
Side dishes: Sauteed Oyster with Passion Juice, Crab Meat, Mashed potato and Brocolli
Dessert: Sweet Lover

Lovely Valentine's Dinner: My Grilled Salmon

I called it a Romantic Pendaflour-light Dinner as we were having it DIY at home.
Why isn't it a Candle-light dinner? I think it's better option after taking into consideration the safety issue- the main course is salmon fish which has fish bone.. =p
Why is it Romantic? Who says romantic dinner is only meant for 2 person? On that night, we had a special guest- my sister. Wine was prepared too. This is also a special Valentine's day for me as i prepared for 3 pax instead of 2. Luckily my cooking standard was not dropped because of the stress level (to prepare for our fussy guest =p).

Lovely Valentine's Dinner: Special 3-pax Meal

For me, i didn't expect how well can the herb: Thyme completed my grilled salmon.
However, the real satisfaction comes from Agreement: When you hear "ya"..and Compliment such as "Wow", "good", "Umm.." and Action when you see all the food went into their stomach fast!

My serving task got completed to serve sweet dessert after meal.
It's Tiramishu Ice Cream with Passion topping.
Hope my valentine enjoy the meal, so as my special guest!

Lovely Valentine's Dinner: Sweet Lovers

To everyone who reads this, Happy Valentine's Day.

Pre- Valentine's Dinner at Strawberry Field, PJ

It's our pre-valentine celebration. And it's 3 person to celebrate Valentine (with my lovely sister). The prince a.k.a my boyfriend said: He is so blissful that he is accompanied by two pretties for Valentine's Dinner this year. lol..

It was quite late at night, on 13th February. We took some times thinking of a nice place to go and we came to here: Strawberry Field!

Strawberry Field, Petaling Jaya

Strawberry Field, Petaling Jaya

We ordered each set of this:
1. Hawaii Chicken chop
2. Lamb chop
3. Mixed seafood grilled

Strawberry Field: Hawaii Chicken Chop

Strawberry Field: Lamb Chop

Strawberry Field: Mixed Seafood Grilled

The price is reasonable and the portion is big. A simple supper celebration but it's super filling!

Strawberry Field: Dessert

Strawberry Field, Petaling Jaya

Strawberry Field, Petaling Jaya

Location: Strawberry Field
2, Jalan Tengah, PJ New Town, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake 2012

It's Chinese tradition to throw mandarin oranges on Chap Goh Meh, the 15th days of first month in Chinese Lunar Calendar.
This year on 6th Feb 2012, there is a celebration as usual, at Taman Jaya Lake, located near to Amcorp Mall at Taman Jaya LRT Station.
Why throw mandarin oranges? As the Hokkien says, Tim Kam, Chua Ho Ang..
So what should guys throw? The answer is Apple! Tim Peng Ko, Chua Ho Bo..
What you think we have thrown? We use banana this time.. Tim Kin Jiau, Tiok Beh Piau!
The whole process was funny throwing banana instead of mandarin oranges as we were special than others. Even ourselves laughed non-stop.I wonder if our banana was "Lao" by anyone, or eaten by fish!

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake: Banana instead of Mandarin Orange

What were the activities that night? Chinese gathered at Taman-Jaya Lake that night. There are programs such as, booth selling things and food, Mandarin Orange throwing activities, light up Kong Ming Deng, etc.

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake: Busy guy "Lao-gan" at the lake side

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake: Mandarin Oranges thrown into lake

This is really my first experience lighting up Kong Ming Deng (孔明灯). It's also called Sky Lantern or Wishing Lantern. First, we wrote all our wishes on the paper. How we wish we have the smallest hand-writing and the biggest Deng to write thousands of wishes! But taking into consideration fairy in the sky needed to use more power to read our small writing, we wrote it big, and tried combining the wishes. The fun thing was: Suku couldn't stop adding zero and zero and zero at the end of 1..until i lost count, was it millions, billions, trillions? My sister wrote one of her wishes: To become clever! This made us questioned her: "Are you very stupid now?" lol..

Some "Kelian" Kong Ming Deng got stuck at trees when wind blew at different direction. Some "bravo" Kong Ming Deng crossed tree and obstacles to continue flying. And lots of Kong Ming Deng dropped back to the ground and lake when power finished.

Lighting up Kong Ming Deng is not easy especially the candle. You will need some people to hold sides of Kong Ming Deng when lighting it up. Everyone has to be co-operative and playing his/her own role to hold Kong Ming Deng from the balanced side. Some even burnt the Kong Ming Deng before lifting it up to sky.


The tip from the Kong Ming Deng's seller is: After lighting up, hold longer to boost the power before releasing it to the sky.
The tip from me is: Trust that your wishes will be brought to fairy and they will come true!
And we really got it! Our Kong Ming Deng flew fast up up up to the sky, getting nearer and nearer to fairy.

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake: Lighting up Kong Ming Deng and Make Wishes

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake: Kong Ming Deng

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake: Our Red Lantern Bringing Our Wishes to Fairy

On that night, i believe there's thousands of Kong Ming Deng were lifting to the sky. From far, it really looked like stars queuing in rows.

Chap Goh Meh at Taman Jaya Lake: Kong Ming Deng flying up to the sky

It's really a pleasant experience which requires co-operation, sweat and passion that each of you shouldn't miss.

This is a video on how a Kong Ming Deng crosses 2 big trees and continue flying smoothly up up up to the sky..

Chinese New Year Nice Food

For most Chinese, new year is a celebration festival where we must have nice food as significance of having enough food for the whole year. Most of the new year food has its own symbolic of prosperity.

Aballon- Bao Hu in Hokkien (similar to "Bao Wu" in Hokkien- having for sure)
Arrowhead- Chiku in Cantonese (having children or to be exact: "son", during the old days)
Bamboo Shoots- Zhu Shun (similar to "Shun" Li in Mandarin, having a smooth year)
Black Moss Seaweed- Fat Choi in Cantonese (Having wealth)
Fish- Nian Nian You Yu in Mandarin (Having extra for every year)
Lime Orange- Kat in Cantonese (Means luck)
Lotus seed- Lian zi in Mandarin (Having large number of children)
Oyster- Hou in Cantonese (Similar to "hou" in Cantonese which means good)
Peanut- Fa Shang in Cantonese (Similar to "sang" in Cantonese which means longevity)
Prosperity Toss- Lou Sang in Cantonese ("sang" means longevity)
Rice Cake- Nian Gao (Increasing of prosperity every year)

~~ Others can be referred from Recipes.howstuffworks.com

This is our Prosperity Toss of the year.. It's put on a big plate with at least 50cm in diameter, but still we had to squeeze together while the whole family "Lou" the "sang" for this dragon year. I think next year we have to order a specially-made big plate just for the toss!

Chinese New Year: Prosperity Toss, Lou Sang

For me, Chinese New Year is a blissful occasion as it's the most happening time when the whole family member gather at the same place once in a year. Obviously, i can't resist the temptation of all nice food. I'm blessed that i have a chef-family. My mother can cook very well. All my aunties can cook well and fast. My own definition of delicious not necessary means expensive such as Aballon, shark-fin or tiger-prawn. It is as simple as: Taste of Home..Seriously i have gained not only happiness but also pounds of "real-physical-happiness" in that short period of a week.


What is our tempting nice home-cooked food?
I would say from A to Z, as long it's healthy and edible ingredients, all my magician-aunties-cum-mothers can transform it to tempting food.

I call this soup as New-Year Soup. It's combination of Chicken Soup, Fish Maw, belly (Zhu Tou), Straw Mushroom, Long Cabbage (wong nga bak), and sometimes abaloon slice.
Why is it New-Year soup? Since young from the day i know what is "Chinese New Year", i never miss this soup during every family new-year-eve reunion dinner.
It's normally boiled for at least 4 to 5 hours. So can you imagine how sweet and yummy is the soup?

Chinese New Year: New-Year Soup

As usual, Fish, prawn, meat..are meant for celebration!

So what did we have?
Sweet sour bone: This is Ah Yi's new recipe- Ribs. It's stewed ribs with sugar and vinegar until the bone itself is chewable..
Asam Prawn is simple, but it's really Bon-apetit! Just the sauce is enough mixing with rice to open your appetite.
Dried Bamboo Shoot is cooked with: Sea Cucumber, Chicken, Dried Mushroom, Dried Octopus and Chinese Red Dates (Jujubes) in salty black sauce.
Prawn with pineapple is another creative dish.
Eel with Ginger Black Sauce- a healthy dish.
Eel was purposely imported from Kelantan to Kedah by using family car!
Simple Curry Chicken without coconut milk. Every dish my aunty cooks, must be a favourite of someone.

Chinese New Year: Sweet Sour Bone

Chinese New Year: Nyonya Style Asam Prawn

Chinese New Year: Dried Bamboo Shoot with sea cucumber

Chinese New Year: Pineapple Prawn

Chinese New Year: Eel with Ginger Black Sauce

Chinese New Year: Curry Chicken

Every year, my parent's and Ah Yi's family will travel from Kelantan to uncle house in Kedah. This is the place we gather. My cousins are now working at different states in Penisular Malaysia: KL, Johor, Penang, Kuantan, Perak Anson etc..and even in oversea-Singapore.

That's how we have combination of different cooking style and each state's specialty.

Cha Hu is famous in Kedah, especially if you eat at Kuala Kedah, the harbour to Langkawi Island. I tried Cha Hu outside before but my aunty still cook the best!

Chinese New Year: Pan-fried fish, Kedah Cha Hu

My aunty's best cooking: Penang Har Mee (Prawn Noodle), Penang Laksa and Penang Otak-otak. She knows all of us love it, and i know she purposely cook for us.

Chinese New Year: Laksa Penang

Chinese New Year: Otak-otak Penang

Another special menu of this year- Satay Celup Malacca. My cousin bought packet sauce specially from Malacca, and we DIY all the Kushi/satay!

Chinese New Year: Satay Celup Malacca

Kao Jam, the green color mixed rice, which is famous in Kelantan, was traveled to Kedah. Of course my mother didn't import all the green rice from Kelantan, but only the green-color juice to cook rice.
It's mixed with: Fish meat, mixed raw vegetables and hearbs, Fried coconut, Fish Crackers, black pepper and "budu". I posted before Kelantan Trip: Nasi Kerabu Kao Jam in my previous post.

Chinese New Year: Kao Jam, Nasi Kerabu Kelantan

We also had BBQ, sponsored by my the other uncle. What i like the most? The grilled squid with Tomyam by my cousin.

Chinese New Year: BBQ night

Chinese New Year: BBQ night

For dessert, my cousin, who is guy, made this: Ice-Fire Mr. Red Bean.
It's hot red bean soup cooked with mandarin orange skin, mixed with cube Cincau, and a scoop of Vanila Ice-cream.
I admit, a guy can cook this better than me!

Chinese New Year: Dessert prepared by cousin

Every year in Kedah, we will eat the famous Miku (面龟). It's pao with red color skin, similar to tortoise shape. Surprisingly, it's plain without any filling, but it's famous that most people like it. I guess that's the taste of traditional-natural.

Chinese New Year: (middle) Stacked of Kedah Mi Ku

Why do we eat Ang Ku Kuih (红龟糕) during Chinese New Year? It's a shape of Red color Tortoise, which represents long live. It's rice cake, similar to Mochi skin, with Bean's filling. Not only Chinese New Year, Ang Ku Kuih is also used to for worship god, and distributed during baby's full moon celebration.

Chinese New Year: Nyonya Ang Ku Kuih

So now you understand why i gain "happiness" whenever i'm home? Who can resist eating nice food? I'm the most "Xing-fu" person! I'm touched that all the food was prepared with passion and love. That's what make it the best food in the world!

How to stand an egg?

How to stand an egg? Egg on table

It's Li-chun on 4th February 2012 at 6.22pm. Li-chun (立春) or Lap Chun (in Cantonese) means the first day of spring in lunar calendar. 

Li chun begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longtitude of 315 degree and ends when it reaches the longtitude of 330 degree. In the Gregorian calendar, it usually begins around 4th February and ends around 18th February (19th February East Asia time).

~~ source from En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichun  

According to Chinese myth, Egg can stand on its end on the day of Li-chun.

But there are sayings that it has nothing to do with equinox. You can actually stand eggs at any time at any day at any season along the whole year.

If an egg stands on end, it would do it at any time, and not just at the equinox.

~~ source from Badastronomy.com

On the first day of spring- 4th February that night, i really wanted to try how to stand an egg. But i have non left in fridge! So the next day, i really bought a box of egg. 24 hours have passed from the exact Li-chun time, but we still wanted to try it out. So me, my boyfriend aka the Prince, and my sister were very excited with the experiment.

And out of sudden, and didn't we know how the prince did it, he managed to stand an egg!

Yeah, we can actually do it. Then only we found out our way to stand an egg. 

First, you will need a smooth and flat surface, for example: Dining Table (not necessary on floor).

Then, we used 4 fingers, to swing an egg left and right the whole 360 degree until it reached a stable point. It was pretty easy to stand the other eggs once we found out how to do it. But, lots patience were still required to find out that stable point.

This is a short video how the prince managed to stand an egg in 10seconds time, i think it should be his best recorded time even it has passed the li-chun time.

How to stand an egg? Egg on the floor

Not only on table, i can also stand egg on floor. I found it easiest to stand on flat surface on a piece of cloth. It can be done in less than 2 seconds.

How to stand an egg? Easier to stand egg on cloth

So, now your turn to try it out? Be patient and confident!

When my HaPpy FaMiLy appear on ntv7

NTV7 Movie: HAPPY FAMILY

Happy Family is a CNY movie starring by NTV7 team, airing on NTV7 on the first day of Chinese New Year, at 10pm 23rd January 2012. It's about a story of family members appearing from a family portrait. The family members from the pictures have totally different personality than the real one. And that is how they help the main actor, William, to improve his relationship with the real family member.

This is really a nice movie from Malaysian team. It's meaningful, and the way they capture every angle is perfect!

One of my cousin sent in our Happy Family picture for the contest on 哈比全家福 Happy Family Facebook. And the good news was..Our Family Portrait was on TV that night! Our whole family happily waited for our face on TV after dinner, and when the movie finished, we already had a few cameras ready to take pictures and videos to capture the memorable moment!

We waited for around 15 minutes, feeling so excited to wait for our turn!

This is how happening in our whole house that night when our family portrait appeared on NTV7 that night! Thank you ntv7.