A Safe & Simple Christmas at Home

In a year ravaged by Covid-19, Christmas arrived with little cheer, less fanfare.....and even lesser celebrations, I believe.  There was still the usual advertising of Christmas & New Year offerings by hotels and restaurants.  I'm not sure if there were many takers of such promotions.

With such a high number of cases reported daily in KL and Selangor, many would probably want to play it safe by having a meal at home instead.  We opted for the same...a simple but safe Christmas with closed ones.  A sister-in-law played host to our family gathering by keeping to the allowed Christmas SOP for celebrations in private residences (of not more than 20 people for landed property).

My sister-in-law was so rajin to put up Christmas decorations in her house to usher in the Christmas vibe and spirit.  When I entered her house, all the lights were off except for the blinking, bright, multi-coloured decorative lights, complete with a screenshot of falling snow (and appropriate music), to get us into the Christmas-y mood.....lol.

That's our Christmas spread.....our potluck consisted of something cooked....or something bought...depending on what each family wanted to contribute.

First up, there was the unboxing of the Christmas roast turkey (RM335, bought from a hotel) which a brother-in-law contributed.

The turkey was so tightly wrapped in aluminium foil and cling wrap that it was still hot when we unveiled it. This 5kg bird was so heavy it needed two persons to transfer it onto a large platter.

The roast turkey came with a complimentary serving of roasted potatoes and seasonal vegetables.  I better show you the before photo (of it whole) and not after it was butchered by my poor carving skills! >_<

The turkey was also accompanied by the usual chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce and brown jus. Butchered...or beautifully carved, it's still the same turkey....lol...though I have to admit the turkey tasted better when eaten on site.  That can't be helped (of course) as the tight wrapping may have caused the bird to cook further rendering the breast meat a little drier and the skin to lose some of its desired crispiness.  Luckily, the sauces were on hand to turn the turkey into a pleasant enough eating experience.

A cousin's husband made this Mushroom Soup.  It was thick, creamy and rich...perhaps just a tad thicker than I would have preferred but still very good nevertheless for a home-cooked version (heck, it was even better than some of those I've had at restaurants).  It had a deliciously intense mushroom flavour with added texture from the generous slices of added button mushrooms.  All it needed was some freshly cracked black pepper (he even brought along a bottle of MC black peppercorn grinder) and the soup is good to go.

A sister-in-law also made her signature Spaghetti Carbonara with (smoked) sausages.  Oops, forgot to snap an individual photo of that (it's the one at the top of the group food photo minus the sauce which was in another pot on the kitchen top).

I decided to make Roasted Vegetable Salad seeing that there wasn't a vegetable dish on our proposed menu. I made two....actually.  The first was a vegetable salad (of roasted red, yellow & green capsicum, cauliflower, broccoli, onions, mushrooms, omelette & crispy bacon) with Kewpie's Thousand Island Dressing that was zesty and appetising.

The second salad had almost similar ingredients of the first but with additional chopped hard-boiled eggs (in the place of omelette) and roasted cherry tomatoes.  This salad was then tossed in Kewpie's Roasted Sesame Dressing with Yuzu that was fragrant and savoury with a hint of citrus.

The first four dishes made up the western part of our menu.  Even though it was Christmas, we had some Chinese dishes too.  First up was this bought Fried Wantan.

This Hakka Char Yoke (braised pork belly with wood ear fungus) is also something bought.  This is the first time I've seen char yoke cooked with whole cloves of garlic.  This tasted like a legit Hakka char yoke though I thought the pork and wood ear fungus could be braised a little longer for an even softer texture.  Both these dishes were contributed by my husband's cousin (and her husband).

Our cousin's parents also cooked this traditional dish of Hakka Taro (Yam) Abacus Seeds.  You could say that these seeds/beads are our Chinese version of gnocchi made with purple yam instead of potato....hee...hee! The cooked beads have a soft and chewy texture but are generally bland in taste.  They rely on a combination of condiments like minced pork, dried shrimps, dried shiitake mushrooms and black fungus in which they're cooked in to give it taste.  It's a pretty tedious dish to cook.

Dessert happened to be a Tiramisu Cake bought in celebration of a sister-in-law's birthday (complete with fireworks...lol!) that was coming up a few days later.

There was quite a bit of food leftover that everyone was required to tapau something home.  Even the turkey carcass had a taker...to make choi keok (leftover food) or suen lat choy (Hakka spicy & sour mustard greens stew) with it (a dish we usually see after the first few days of Chinese New Year where all the leftover food is stewed in a hot and sour soup with Chinese mustard greens).  I chose to tapau the creamy mushroom soup which was the dish I enjoyed the most.  I added a bit more water to dilute the soup when reheating at home...and it tasted even better the second time round.

And that was our quiet (ok-lah, maybe not so quiet) and simple but safe Christmas celebration at home with family...stay home to stay safe!  Hope you had yourself a merry little Christmas too this year. ^_~