It's Chinese New Year Eve in US, but my family in the other side of the globe has already celebrated it. Our tradition is to get together on CNY eve, have dinner on a big table, full of delicious foods.. all special foods are served on the table, some of them are once a year meal or meals for a very special occasion.
It's only us, me and my DH.. I don't want to get too busy in preparing our meals, my DH is on diet, he won't eat too much and as mush as I love all these delicious foods I don't want to eat that much either.. today I decided to cook fish only, fish is one of the traditional meals for this occasion.. it symbolizes abundant of good fortune.. I got this big Tilapia at the Asian store last Thursdsay, and I thought why not cook it in sweet and sour sauce, I love this meal and I rarely cooked it, and today on this special day I successfully cooked it, the taste was so right, sweet and tangy, all mixed together perfectly
- 1 whole fish, we can use fish nuggets (or fish steak, cut in bite size)
- 1 lemon.. juice it
- mix 1/2 cup of cornstarch, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of blackpepper
- 1 carrot, cut in match sticks size
- 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 cup of chunck pineapple (canned) with juice
- 1/2 medium onion, sliced
- 1 tsp of minced garlic
- 1 inch of ginger, sliced
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 tsp of homemade chili sauce, Sambal Oelek or Sriracha (optional)
- 1/2 cup of tomato ketchup
- 1 cup of lemonade
- salt, black peppers, sugar
- 1 tsp of cornstarch. mix with 2 tbsp of water
Method:
- sprinkle fish with lemon juice, drain the excess juice,
- rub both side of fish or fish nuggets with the flour mixture, place fish on a cookie rack
- let it sit for 10 minutes
Meanwhile heat a skillet, add 2 tbsp of oil, brown ginger and onion for a few minutes, add garlic, stir for a minute, add carrots, bell pepper, stir for a while, add pineapple and the juice, add in lemon juice, tomato ketchup, chili sauce, salt and pepper, sugar, thicken with cornstarch mixture. Cook until the sauce is thickened, set aside
- in a big frying pan, heat oil, about 1 1/2 inches
- carefully add in the fish, fry covered for 3 to 5 minutes, then flip it, cover and cook for another 3 minutes, place fish on the cookie rack, let it sit for 5 minutes
- place fish on a big plate, pour sweet and sour on it
- garnish with green onions
- serve hot with steamed white rice
And 2 more traditional things on this occasion are ORANGES, any kind of them, Kumquats and Pomelo are the favorite choices, but this year we got Honey Tangerine.. the other thing is red envelopes with money tucked inside, usually handed out by older generations to the younger ones.. we ( I and my DH) still get it from my mother, and I still give it to my mom and nieces.. I remember when I was still young, CNY was a fun occasion, I'd get a lot of red envelopes with so much money in them.. ah sweet memory on happy times..
oh and this.. sweet rice cake, a must eat food on CNY too, in fact it's only available in the stores for this occasion..