Dad’s sweet and sour pork

 Mum’s cracking five-spiced roast pork belly Golden garlic ribs Char siu pork Black peppercorn sizzling hotplate steak Eight treasures clay pot Poached chicken with ginger and spring onion sauce Lollipop chicken Crispy duck stuffed with sticky rice Spring onion, ginger and garlic crab  Garlic-crusted king prawns Nothing will make you lou sai hou sou (literally ‘mouth water’) like the tantalising sights and smells of a vibrant Cantonese feast. Perhaps you are faced with a huge circular restaurant table, on top of which a lazy Susan threatens to stop spinning under the burgeoning weight of an impressive spread. Or maybe you are getting ready to tuck in home-buffet style with your extended family, like we frequently did in New Zealand. Either way, it’s time to brace yourself and loosen your belt because the Cantonese banquet is, in a word, lush Cantonese banqueting dishes are the most famous and special ones, and also usually among the crispi-est, stickiest and richest, too. Sometimes they can take more time and love to prepare than everyday meals such as those found in the Chineasy and Sharing Menu chapters. Even so, a banquet is certainly achievable at home, and it is so terrific to eat and ‘wow’friends and family with that these dishes are worth every minute spent in the kitchen.

Pair these dishes with plain steamed rice do as our dad always has: savour the banquet dishes at an unhurried pace while sipping on a fine whiskey or Chinese grain wine. If you can still muster up some energy after dinner, make it a real Cantonese banqueting affair by whipping out the microphones and indulging in a spot of off-key karaoke!

qingquang

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