Last night we had a dinner to celebrate my eldest sister’s birthday. Mum also wanted to give my cousin and her hubby a good home-cooked meal before they return home with their new baby (they live in the country, and have been in Perth for the birth of the baby, who was born on the 27th). Here’s the vegetable dish, stir-fried spinach with garlic.

Ginger is apparently very good thing for a new mother to eat. The chinese traditionally believe that when you have a baby you are as close to death as you can get, and after giving birth you need to eat foods that give you back the heat you lost (I personally don’t believe in this). And in the same vein, a new mother shouldn’t eat “cooling” foods like lettuce and cucumber (again, I really don’t believe this stuff). My dad is adamant that if a mother doesn’t follow these rules, it will come back to haunt her later; for example, my grandma is convinced my Mum’s arthritis is a result of bending these heat/cool rules way back when she’d had one (or more) of us kids.* So anyway, Mum made this dish of ginger chicken mainly for my cousin’s benefit. It’s one of my all-time favourites, ever since I was a child. The chicken is really tender and there are lovely bits of ginger and soft, delicious caramelised onion in the sauce. The dish is also flavoured with sesame oil. I can eat mountains and mountains of rice just with the gingery sauce poured over the top. Mmmmmm. I’ve been too lazy to learn how to cook this, but Mum has promised to give Jac the recipe (rubs hands and salivates in anticipation).

Mum also cooked kari hantu (ghost curry). I really like the snake beans in this dish. This time Mum made it with turkey drumsticks, rather than chicken. There was also a small dish of kari hantu made with beef for my dad. He’s just not into poultry.

My plate, round one. I kept spooning more sauce over my rice. And when I finished my rice, I had more, and more and more.