Winter Solstice - the shortest day or the longest night of the year on the northern hemisphere and vice versa on the southern hemisphere, occurs between December 20 and December 23.
It is the only day the sun shines brightly on the South Pole.
Every year, many cultures around the world celebrate this day for various reasons and significances.
(Click here to know more about Winter Solstice on Wikipedia)
Since I'm a Malaysian Chinese, I will only tell you how the Chinese celebrate this festival.
The Chinese call it Dong Zhi, (Chinese: 冬至; Pinyin: dōng zhì; "The Extreme of Winter").
This festival is also a time for family members to get together and the main activity of the day is the making and eating of glutinous rice balls (Chinese: 汤圆; Pinyin: Tāng Yuán).
Tang Yuan is a dessert of colourful glutinous rice balls served in hot syrup. The dessert symbolises reunion and prosperity.
Glutinous Rice Balls (Tang Yuan). Notice the bottom right one, it looks like a pokeball.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How I celebrated this day...
Just like every year, I celebrated the festival with the big family (on my dad's side) - my grandma, uncle and aunt's family, cousins to my dad's family, and not forgetting my cousin's girlfriend. As usual, my granny makes the Tang Yuan in the morning.
She always makes 2 types:
- the usual one in syrup boiled with a bit of ginger (shown above) -- we call it sweet Tang Yuan
- the unique Tang Yuan served in soup -- we call it "salty" Tang Yuan
I personally love the one in soup, it's like eating a soup noodle.
I think we are the only family around the world who serves this type of Tang Yuan.
You can put in any type of soup. This year, the soup of the day is the pork stomach soup (猪肚汤).
"Salty" Tang Yuan, Tang Yuan served in soup. yummy~
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dinner at my uncle's house...
My cousins - young gamblers
Dinner time!!!
We had...(drumroll....)
Soup of the day - pork stomach soup
Fried chicken
Spicy stir fried fish balls... nice!!!
My favourite dish - Stir fried prawns with curry leaf & X.O cognac
Kailan & carrot
Mushroom marinated duck
Roasted pork with tofu & onion leaf
Steamed arrowhead(nga gu) & Chinese sausage
Deep fried nam yee pork & more X.O prawns
and salad for dessert -- Sliced cucumber & tomatoes, simple as that.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Last but not least,
Posts
3 comments:
All the dishes look so delicious.... miss mummy's food d :) nice post man
if i am not mistaken, the salty kind of thong yuen is by hakka people. that's what i heard from my friend.
Hmm.. maybe. But my ancestry is not Hakka.
Post a Comment