FoodNerd!

Christmas dinner with the other side of the family

We had dinner Christmas day with tallasiandude's LA-based extended family, and damn, was that a spread! Enough cold plates to feed an army, followed by an equally staggering battery of hot dishes and a pair of desserts.

I may have forgotten something, but to the best of my recollection there was:

salted eel (kind of like less-salty salt-cod)
vegetarian duck (layered sheets of tofu skin from the look of it)
wood ears and vegetarian kidney (some kind of gluten I think cut to look like kidney)
jalapenos stuffed with ground pork and braised in soy sauce & sugar
steamed egg loaf with 1000-year eggs and salted duck egg yolk
turnip pickles with soy sauce and szechuan peppercorns
cold tendon
sweet & sour spare ribs (not very sour, mostly savory)
salty ham with boiled lotus seeds, on lightly toasted bread to make a li'l sammich
clams steamed with scrambled egg and green onion
shrimps sauteed with garlic and green onion and spicy stuff
braised pork hock with bok choy
tofu noodles with green beans, ham and mushroom
mustard greens with shredded ham and dried scallop
soup with bamboo, enoki, napa and egg dumplings with pork filling
rice cakes sauteed with mushroom and cabbage in a brown sauce
sticky rice with red bean paste and dried fruits
my cranberry upside-down cake