happy birthday mum!

Last weekend, I had family over to celebrate mum's birthday. My aunt took charge and organised for each family to supply a component of the night's meal. As is the tradition in my family, everyone ends up buying enough food to feed everyone else. So a bbq that was meant to be for 15 ended up being a bbq for about 60. It was all good fun though and everyone left home with enough food for the next couple of dinners.

To start the night off, my aunt brought over these Korean puffs that she made. It's a puff/bread crossover and tastes like the fried glutinous rice balls you have at yum cha except without the filling. Apparently you buy it as a batter from the Korean stores and it doesn't take long to cook. I chomped away on quite a few of these whilst waiting for the bbq to start up.

These look like pebbles but they're actually chocolate coated apricots. I wasn't a big fan - they were sweet and unfortunately, I couldn't quite get over the fact that I was eating what looked like a rock.

The highlight of the night had to be this wagyu. Mum bought it for about $40/kg (not your highest grade wagyu) but a bite of this, I don't think I can actually go back to eating any other beef. The texture was so soft and so juicy that it just melts in your mouth. If you can, try have this medium rare/rare - it's the best! Anyway, these were cooked on the big bbq - had two bbqs running on the night.

We're all growing up! It's now our job to start up the BBQ.

Here's a snapshot of half the food.

The other half.

Behind the wagyu, this was my second favourite - tandoori chicken wings! Anyway, did my best to squeeze as many chicken wings onto this as possible. If you've never done bbqs HK style with the forks, chicken is one of the longest items to cook.

Chicken wings - nearly done. We had a good fire that night and it was actually nice to sit around the fire and keep warm.

I find I can't actually eat all that much these days. I don't think I even got to half the food that was on the table! Despite my initial reservations about sitting outside in the cold, a bbq actually ended being a quite nice idea. It was nice and toasty to sit around the fire and at the end of the meal, to toast marshmallows! The best marshmallows for toasting are the No Frills ones from Franklins - they're the biggest (bigger than the non-branded ones from Woolies) and they're actually not as sweet as your branded marshmallows. Haha...I do love toasted marshmallows.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Mum! Thanks for being the great mum that you are!