Remember how we started…

I do remember that New Year’s Day last year (2021) fell on a Friday so we had Bovril mee sua instead of our usual – the longevity noodles served in traditional Foochow red wine and ginger chicken soup to start off the brand new year.

Well, this year, it was on a Saturday but no, we did not have it first thing in the morning as usually, I am the only one in the house who gets up at the break of dawn. We had it…

…for lunch instead and yes, we did invite my sister to join us.

Incidentally, I came across this article online: New Year’s food traditions around the world and at No. 6 is soba noodles from Japan. According to the writer, “In Japanese households, families eat buckwheat soba noodles, or toshikoshi soba, at midnight on New Year’s Eve to bid farewell to the year gone by and welcome the year to come. The tradition dates back to the 17th century, and the long noodles symbolize longevity and prosperity.”

That sure sounds similar to our Chinese (Foochow) traditional practice of eating mee sua on New Year’s Day, something we would do without fail every year and also during Chinese New Year, as well as on birthdays, weddings, engagements and anniversaries.

Moving away from the mee sua, I got these bottles of sambal…

…from my sis. She bought them from a friend who was selling these at a church fund-raising food sale in Kuching and she passed them to me to let me have a go. They are made at Kota Samarahan in Kuching, DOKU brand from the Doku Biotechnology Industries Sdn. Bhd. there (tel.: +60198880612).

I tried the sambal serai ikan bilis (lemon grass & dried anchovies)…

…on toast…

…and yes, I loved it!

However, I thought it was a bit too sweet, something like acar limau (lime pickle) so I should go slow on it…

…considering that I am on a low-sugar diet.

I did try the other bottle, the sambal with bunga kantan (torch ginger flower) and it was not sweet, more to the savoury side but one may be put off by the taste and fragrance of the flower – I would say it is an acquired taste. We are used to it and actually, my missus prefers this one to the other.

She took it to cook this meat dish…

…that day and boy, it was really awesome, so very nice! It had that exotic taste typical of Thai or Vietnamese cuisines and we sure loved it a lot!

Now, there’s only half a bottle left – I wonder if these sambals are available at our local stores or not. Both do not have that unpleasant smell that I can usually detect in factory-made sambals, never mind canned or bottled – that is why I would not buy those as the smell puts me off. The only bone that I have to pick with these two is how come the ikan bilis (dried anchovies) in that first one is so black in colour.