Pork with Long Beans and Chives

One of the delights of living in a foreign country - well, for me anyway - is the food shopping.  I particularly enjoy browsing the produce sections of the supermarkets, or the roadside stalls selling fruit and veg where I often stop on the way home from work.  We've taken the opportunity to sample lots of new and exciting fruit and vegetables, although there are still many that we would have no idea of how to use so have shied away from.  Cowardly I suppose, but never mind.

So when we discover a recipe that uses something new and exciting we leap upon it.  And this Madhur Jaffrey recipe - Pork with Long Beans and Chives - fit the bill perfectly.  I had been eyeing up these bizarre looking veg for a while:

They are labelled in Malay, so I had no idea what they were, but they are long stalks with what appear to be flower-buds on the end.  I'm not entirely sure that they are what Madhur Jaffrey means when she calls for 'Chinese Chives'  (and I notice that Tesco have substituted regular chives in this published version of the recipe) but these garlicky lovelies were a perfect ingredient for the dish.  They're strong-tasting and pungent whiich makes them a real feature of the meal, rather than 'just' an accompanying vegetable.

Long beans are always a favourite here.  Just like French beans... but very long!  The clue's in the name.

Madhur Jaffrey says this is a Cantonese dish, from Hong Kong.  It had a lovely savoury sauce, but one with no heat so perfect for the chilli-haters (neither of us fall into this category - far from it - but we have friends and family who don't partake).

Definitely a 'keeper' of a dish.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Or Happy Chinese New Year!

One of the lovely things about teaching in an International School is the range of different festivals that we celebrate.  The Muslim festival of Hari Raya Aidilfitri was the first one of these that I experienced, but last week we celebrated Chinese New Year.

We had a fantastic assembly where we all wore red (or Chinese costume if we had it) and watched some of the Secondary students perform the Lion Dance.  Sadly my photos of this occasion are all on my classroom computer, not at home.  All the children (and staff!) were given gifts of mandarins, symbols of luck and wealth.

One of the nicest aspects of the celebration was the fact that we were given 2 days off work!  We went down to Miri, just over the border in Sarawak, Malaysia, for a few days.

This turned out to be somewhat of a mistake as a) it rained for most of the time, and b) most of Miri was closed due to the public holidays, but we had a nice time nonetheless!  Several of our friends were also there, so it turned into a very sociable couple of days.

Miri - as much of Malaysia - has a large Chinese population so many of the streets were festooned with Chinese lanterns.  Beautiful by day and by night.

It also meant that we were able to eat in some great Chinese restaurants - we played it safe and avoided the chicken feet (which you can see on the picture menu behind Rob!)

We had heard that the hotel we were staying at - the Miri Marriott - hosted a Lion Dance for Chinese New Year, but unfortunately this year it happened at 11am on Thursday...  and we arrived at 12 noon, just in time to see the dancers packing up their drums. 

However, the hotel left mandarins and a 'lucky' 10c in every room!

So the year of the Rabbit has begun - something that pleases me because it turns out that I was born in the year of the Rabbit too.  According to the card, people born under the sign of the rabbit are 'articulate, talented and ambitious' as well as 'admired, trusted and often financially lucky'.  I can't say I agree completely with that assessment of my character, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for that financial 'luck' - perhaps I should go and buy a lottery ticket?!

May the year be happy and prosperous for you all.