Fancy Chinese Style Potluck

It's been a while since my last potluck event,

Let me see....it was like...almost a year ago?

Time flies...

So what brought everybody together this time?

Perhaps too much toxic liquid for the past few weeks?

Maybe we were just in the mood for something chill in a Sunday afternoon?

Or it was just an excuse to have lots, I mean loads of delicious homemade food?

The reason's no longer important,

I can only recall that I overstuffed myself with yummy Chinese goodies!

Since it was a potluck event,

That means I can't just show up and devour everything on the table like I usually do,
Some efforts need to be done first,
So I decided to cook something I made before: beef with scallion and butter sauce,
You can find similar recipe from my previous post.

Here's the before picture-

After-


I almost burned my tiny little brain while trying to figure out what to cook,
This wasn't an ordinary potluck,
All the personnel involved are awesome cooks,
I was under tremendous amount of pressure throughout the whole cooking process,
First, I had to worry about whether my dish tastes OK or not to those regular cooks,

A simple scrambled eggs won't satisfy their palate at all.
Second, I don't want my friends to commit a sin by lying to me that the food is delicious.
Can you imagine me with stiff smile on my face when they had the very first bite?

So what happened after they reluctantly swallowed my food?

I don't know, I was avoiding eye contact every time somebody took a bite of my food.

But enough of my anxious talk,

Here are some of the dishes they cooked~

Braised pork knuckle with crystal sugar 冰糖煨蹄膀-

My friend fried the whole knuckle prior braising it,

The meat was very tender, but I personally think the fatty skin was the best,

The inner side of the skin fat just melted slowly in my mouth,

It was full of wonderful aroma from all the Chinese essence: garlic, ginger, star anise, and so on,

I can have bowls of rice with this dish!

Fish fillet with garlic sauce 魚香魚片-

The chef for this dish put lots of freshly grounded fagara (花椒) in this dish,

The whole house was filled with the aroma from fagara,

Not only my tongue can tastes the spiciness, my nose can sense the power of fagara too!

Fish head casserole 砂鍋魚頭-


The tofu sucked up all the flavor from the soup,

All the juice just splash out when I took a bite of it!

Rice with sweet corn and garlic 蒜香玉米飯-

There's even a spin on regular plain white rice,

This is the evidence that we really put lots of effort in this potluck event.

Group picture for several dishes including baked cod 烤鱈魚 and steamed pomfret 清蒸鯧魚-

People (especially us the spoiled generation) usually don't cook these kinda dishes for potluck right?

Every plates here looks like meals that are nicely prepared from a authentic Chinese restaurant,

It's a blessing that maybe I'll have many opportunities to eat professional homemade food in the future,

Hey, wait a second!

Does that also means I'll be under the spot light for more tests and challenges from now on??