Steamboat for Chinese New Year reunion dinner

Nowadays most people do not spend hours in the kitchen cooking the reunion dinner. It is either eat out in the restaurant or have steamboat at home. This year I decided to have a small reunion dinner at home and the choice is obviously steamboat which is easy to prepare and it does not leave oily streaks in the house after the many hours of cleaning. The beauty about having steamboat is you can use any ingredients. Marie assembled the platters after I had washed and cleaned the ingredients.

The usual fish balls and other seafood

This is the platter with the prawns, marinated chicken slices and jelly fish

Here we have the double quail eggs, white fungus, sliced pork and more seafood.





Preparing the stock

As always, I like to blanch the bones first to remove the scum which you can see floating on the top. You can strain the scum away or change the water which is what I prefer to do.

To add sweetness to the soup I always add one turnip. Remove the skin and cut the turnip into 4 pieces. Chuck the turnip into the boiling stock and simmer for about 2 - 3 hours

This is the table all set for the dinner. I use a rice cooker which is just as effective. Strain the boiling stock into the rice cooker and wait for it to boil then it is time to eat and enjoy.