Good haul this year. I suppose it’s no coincidence that most of the gifts I received were edible. And those that weren’t certainly smelled like they could be.
Tonight was Christmas Dinner 2: Revenge of the In-Laws. On the menu this night: lasagna, chickpea salad, cabbage rolls, our second roast leg of lamb of the holidays, turkey, home made spring rolls (filled with pork, shrimp, veggies, vermicelli and served with both plum and fish sauce, better than any spring rolls I’ve had in any restaurant), shrimp in lobster sauce, a truly marvelous dish of Chinese mushrooms, tofu, chicken, and whole chestnuts, barbecued duck, fantastic home made won ton soup, ribs, potato salad, shrimp and celery salad, shrimp cake in vegetable sauce. For dessert: Skor cake (a little too creamy for me), and Dan Gow, a light sponge cake with fruit and cream – as I’m someone who tends to ask for the heaviest thing on the dessert menu, it didn’t do it for me.
Overall, another great meal. And, no doubt, another sleepless night.
FYI – ‘Dan Gow’ is the generic chinese for any cake – basically a western style cake. I think it literally means ‘Springy Sponge’ or ‘Springy Foam’. The fresh fruit cake that you had is called a ‘Seen Gwoh Dan Goh’.
And that our chinese chat for today.
Actually, if you go by the individual words, Dan means egg, and gow means pastry of a sort.
So…cake = egg pastry. Makes sense.
That has got to be one of the most varied Christmas dinners I have ever seen. Over here (near Edinburgh), we have turkey, roast potatoes, carrots, cabbage, chippolatas (sp?) wrapped in bacon, gravy, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, toasted breadcrumbs and copious amounts of cake 😀
Oh Joe, that mushroom dish looks so tasty… was it as good as it looks?
Elminster