A Winter Solstice

Last year, I spent goh tong or winter solstice in Seremban.
This year, I spent it in Klang with the folks.

It is really a Chinese tradition that my parents are trying to keep alive but we are just too distant for that to happen. Did you know there is the Persian equivalent to celebrate the longest night of the year? I didn't either until a colleague told us.

Ever since my sister got married ever, most of our family dinners are just my parents and myself. Sometimes, it does feel like being an only child when your next sibling is 6years away. As in age wise. We don't time travel. Not like we can if we wanted to, anyway.

Hence, this is our simple meal. Nothing fancy except for the home grown lady's fingers. Yes, my parents are into farming but on a small minuscule scale. Say, a flower pot?
A ready made curry paste from Ratha Raub served as  the base for the fish curry. It had a slight sour twist to an otherwise boring Indian curry.
To its' right is steamed egg with minced pork, an old time childhood favorite of mine. My mom made this using my late grandmother's recipe but (apparently), it didn't turn out the way it was supposed to be. Not that it mattered to moi because eggs and pork, the deal is sweetened by the salted egg yolk.
Simple blanched green to complete the meal.
Oh but wait, there's more. As the typical Cantonese family, the meal is never complete without soup. A very simple pork ribs and white radish soup with some red dates and dried oysters for flavor. I was surprised that it tasted not-as-bland as I imagined because hey, what flavor could white radish possibly have? Quite a lot, it seemed as the soup was sweet. Not from the dates but the radish.

Any goh tong dinner is incomplete without these: glutinous rice balls or tong yuen.
I love these chewy balls simply for its texture. A quick Google search rendered me unhappiness over knowing that these have no nutritional value. But, you don't need a quick Google search to tell that I am stupid enough not to heed the advice and continue to eat them instead.

You could do it from scratch or buy the premix package and roll them into balls yourself. The truly lazy way would be to buy the ready-to-go packs where all that's required is to cook them. My mom took the second hardest (or easiest depending on how you see the glass).

For someone who's content to have a home cooked meal, neither makes much of a difference. I am a happy camper for being fed at the end of the day ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After the balls are cooked in hot water, it's time to enjoy it with some soup. Traditionally, it's ginger tea. Not sure how red bean soup came into the picture but that it did:

This was made entirely from scratch i.e. from the red beans itself. It was a little too watery and by God, they are rather tasteless without any sweetener.

This is a rather lazy method as it's made using those Taiwanese prepacked ginger tea. Sweet with a punch courtesy of the ginger, it makes for a nice contrast in flavor with the balls.