New Year 2009 & Osechi

Happy New Year 2009. This first of of 2009 is dedicated to my husband who spent so much time and effort in making our new year so beautiful. The credit are yours..

I hope friends are still checking in to read my blog after my long overdue marmite post laying there for almost 2 months LOL. Well, after thanks giving in November last year, it was the beginning of holiday season here, so we were busy partying. As for christmas we didnt do no nothing, since my husband was sick day before xmas eve.

Lets talk about new year. We want to make new year ( japanese new year) and chinese new year our family tradition. This year we decided to make our own osechi(traditional japanese new year food) for new year. We have 2 of my husband co workers to join us on the new year day. It was so alot of work, we made quite a number of side dishes and when you have japanese guest, the presentation actually take up half of the preparation time. My husband cooked almost all of the dishes except 2.

Our version of Osechi, all are home cooked by the husband except for the kuromame(black bean) , kazunoko(fish roe)andkamaboko (fish cake). From Left top to bottom, braised beef shank , shanghai style (i made this, i learned this from my shanghai friend and it was so good as the sake no tsumami, beer snack), sweet black bean, fish roe top with bonito flakes, ebi no umani(shrimp braised in sweet sauce), tatemaki (fried egg with fish cake),anchovies (i dont remember how to say it in japanese), butter grilled scallop, kamaboko (fish cake), kurikinton (sweet potato and chestnut). In addition to that my husband also made ozoni (some kind of soup la LOL) and nimono, chawanmushi (steamed egg) and the star main dish is...

baked red snapper wrapped in salt. It was kind of like the chinese baked chicken with salt, where you wrapped the fish with a mixture of egg white and salt, and bake it. he has never made this before i dont even like the idea of he wanted to try to make this dish on for osechi for i dont want to fail on the first day of new year but luckily it turned out find. Though it was so mendokusai (troublesome) and lots of work, we enjoyed preparing for the new year. and now is my turn to crack my head for the chinese new year menu. i guess cooking the japanese is easier because you can prepare the dishes 1 day ahead as the food is not meant to serve hot. unlike chinese food, it is best to be served hot, so cooking many dishes in 1/2 day could be tedious. I will be inviting my friends over and most of them are asian, so they dont actually mind the presentation and they actually just as lepak blues as me, so no worries on presentation.

There will be no new year resolution for me this year. When things happen/come along i just have to learn to handle it better and learn along the way. The one thing i seriously need to improve is my EQ Management.

May everyone of you have a blessed ahead.