Favourite homecooked food!
Sunday home-cooked spread by family — the comfort home-cook spread of Chinese family-style dishes. The favourites that we always come back for.
Sunday family lunch with BB — favourite home-cooked food at the parents’ house. The comfort home-cook spread of Chinese family-style dishes that defines weekend family gatherings.
The spread probably included some combination of the family favourites:
- A braised meat dish (lu rou, soy chicken, or sweet-and-sour pork)
- A stir-fried green vegetable (kai lan, choy sum, or kang kong with garlic)
- A steamed fish (probably whole steamed fish with ginger-and-scallion topping)
- A soup (clear bone broth with seasonal vegetables, or a Chinese herbal soup)
- Rice as the base
Family-style Chinese eating is the proper format. Multiple dishes shared off the centre of the table, with each person spooning portions onto the rice bowl. The dishes complement each other — meat and vegetable, salty and fresh, rich and clean, hot and cool — covering the proper Chinese eating philosophy of balanced flavours across the meal.
The braised meat dish is usually the headline. Slow-cooked in the proper soy-and-spice braising stock that the family has refined over decades. Each version has its small variations — the parents’ soy chicken with the specific ratio of ginger-and-scallion that defines their recipe, the lu rou with the family’s preferred five-spice blend.
The steamed fish is the freshness component. Properly steamed to just-cooked tenderness, with the ginger-and-scallion topping providing the bright aromatic finish. The hot oil drizzled over the scallions at the end creates the small sizzle and releases the proper steamed-fish aroma.
The vegetables are the green-fresh balance. Wok-fried with garlic and a touch of oyster sauce, the proper Cantonese stir-fry technique.
The soup is the warming completion. Light bone broth that you sip throughout the meal as the palate cleanser between bites of the heavier dishes.
Home-cooked food is the eating category that no restaurant can match. The familiarity, the variations refined over years, the small ingredient choices that mark each family’s specific cooking style — these are the things that make home cooking the favourite category.
Overall: 4.7 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Excellent home-cooked spread — would absolutely come back every weekend.
