Coming…

My brother-in-law from Bintulu was coming to town to attend his friend’s son’s wedding on Christmas Eve so my missus was keen on inviting them over to our house for lunch on Christmas Day. Of course, I would be most happy to have him and his family here – they are very nice people and we would ask my other brother-in-law in Sibu and his wife to join us as well.

Wowwww!!! My missus cooked up a storm and the lunch spread that afternoon included these very lovely and tender stewed lamb shanks…

…and there was chicken curry…

…too and satay beef…

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The photograph of the latter turned out blur so I had to use this old one here though this time around, my missus did tweak the recipe a bit and it looked a shade darker and tasted a whole lot nicer.

She bought some Basmati rice to cook this…

…but this time around, she used butter instead of ghee and with all the spices and other ingredients added, it was very nice too. We saw a tin of ghee at a supermarket the other day selling for RM32.00 a big can and normally, we would just use a tablespoon or two and stuff the rest in the fridge, to be thrown away eventually – such a waste…and besides, the brands available these days are not nice, not as fragrant as the one long ago in small green cans with lots of words all over it. I don’t know the brand but I would know it when I see it.

No, we did not have turkey for the simple reason that we are not that fond of the meat but that morning, my missus was about to go out to get one huge chicken to roast in its place like what she did before…

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…and to us, at least, it was a whole lot nicer but I stopped her in her tracks since we already had chicken in the curry and she had cooked so much meat, enough to feed a multitude of 5,000, like we were having some grand open house and expecting a lot of people to show up…when we were only serving lunch for 9 people.

We also had this salad platter…

…with the traditional family dressing…

…specially made using this salad cream…

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…that I got from my cousin from Kuching when she was here recently.

Other than that, we also had this pomelo salad…

…my missus’ attempt to replicate the one we always have here and I would say that she did a very good job and everybody loved it.

It was a good lunch, everyone enjoyed themselves and had their fill but this time around, we did feel the absence of my dear mother-in-law who passed away in August. All those times when we gathered together at my house like this, she would definitely be with us…and because of that, my in-laws will not be celebrating Chinese New Year this year so my Bintulu brother-in-law and his family would not be coming back to Sibu, something they would do every year without fail. That was why we were looking forward to grabbing this opportunity to have them over for lunch, Christmas day.