Festive Fare for Winter Solstice 冬至

The 冬至 (Winter Solstice, Dōngzhì Festival) festival is on the 22nd of December (农历十一月二十八）and as for each of the festival days in the Lunar Year, my nephew, Fah, who is the third son of my eldest sister, will send over festival food a few days earlier for my mum in a 4-tier tiffin carrier and a big bowl of fried noodles.

The Lee （李） family of my eldest sister is a family of chefs but in their businesses, they specialise in making fresh hand-made noodles and have three companies supplying the bulk of the fresh noodles used in Kuching. They also export to Kuala Lumpur, Johore and Singapore. For family festive occasions, they will make and cook special noodles for the celebrations. I love their duck eggs noodle specially made for the Lunar New Year!

Back to the food for the 冬至 (Winter Solstice) festival......see the spread of three meat, one soup and one noodle dishes.

Fried egg noodles （炒全蛋面) using their specially-made all-eggs noodles.

Curry Chicken （加里鸡） 

Deep-fried shaomai (烧卖)

Stewed Duck in Sweet Sauce (甜卤鸭）

Seafood And Meatball Soup (海鲜肉圆汤）

The menu varies from festival to festival but the noodle dish is always part of the menu. Yummy!

3 days to Chinese (Lunar) New Year of the Rabbit or 4701

The family of my eldest sister specialises in making noodles and my three nephews all run their own noodle making businesses supplying fresh noodles to restaurants and noodle stalls in Kuching . They also supply (by air) to customers in West Malaysia and Singapore. My eldest brother-in-law was a chef before he became a noodle maker and he was a really good chef. His festival dinners were meals to look forward to! Since he passed away, three of his children have mastered their father's skills in cooking.

Our festival meal today meal was prepared by his third son - Fah.

To start off, we have the (five fragrances meat roll) ....

Next, we have chicken wings in a honey sauce. This is certainly one of my mum's favourite dish.
 

Then curry chicken ....

This next dish is my favourite - a thick slab of pork (back thigh meat - with a thick layer of fat) stewed with mushroom, cuttle fish, scallops and chestnuts. 

For soup, we have stuffed winter melon ....

 

Finally, fried fresh noodles - this noodle is specially hand-made with flour and eggs only. The egg noodle is much nicer than the normal noodle.

Yummy!!!