12th February 2021

I love Chinese New Year! I really love Chinese food, the flavours the combinations, these are all things I just love.  I always plan our menu and this year have been planning and researching and recipe testing all year.

The plan tonight was dumplings, spring rolls, a whole steamed fish finished with ginger and spring onions and chilli oil, a savoury mushroom glutinous rice cake, longevity noodles, five spice golden chicken and then sticky mandarin rice balls for dessert.

I finished the day job early and wanted to start with the rice pudding balls.  However, I got distracted and burnt the rice to the pan, my poor Le Creuset pot would not come clean. If you ever burn anything badly on to a pan my top tip is to soak the pot overnight with a dishwasher tablet dissolved in water.  Works a dream.  At least I know now this. It took me many man hours scrubbing to remember my mum telling me this.

What distracted me?  My sink which decided tonight was the night to just stop draining and then start backing up the water from the dishwasher.  Needless to say our celebration was not what I had planned as so much time was taken up with the sink that we ended up having bao buns with sticky pork (the highlight of the evening), the glutinous rice cake, the fish and some spring rolls. 

So tomorrow we will try again.