It’s been the second year in the running that I get myself busy and cook the Chinese New Year reunion dinner for my family. It is quite a bit of work compared to pigging ourselves out at some fancy restaurant, but I don’t get many chances of cooking for the family, so why not?

gone with the old, in with the new!

Since my cheap old twin stove has rusted till the point of no return, I decided to get something more hardcore for the kitchen. After scouring around the few electrical appliances stores, I finally get my hands on this hardcore industrial strength Rinnai stove, made in Japan. This baby has a flame thrower ignition sequence, and come complete with thick metal stand that will last me decades. It was RM 185 well spent.

My first dish is the miso soup with Lala (clam).

Ingredients:

• a packet of Lala
• some garlic
• miso paste (or instant miso soup, since I couldn’t find miso paste at Cold Storage)
• a tube of Japanese tofu
• spring onion

Steps:

• clean the Lalas throughly
• mince some garlic and boil them with the Lala
• add miso paste
• add the sliced tofu
• add some chopped spring onion just before serving

Simple isn’t it? Of course, this is only the first of four dishes that I prepared for the night. A little bit of Japanese taste to the traditional Chinese occasion. I’ll blog about the other 3 dishes: Hong Kong Kailan with roasted pork, steamed pomphret, and beef with broccoli in the next few posts.

Gong Xi Fa Chai to you too!