My Favorite Meal
“It means getting away from sitting at the small dinner table. It means not being stuck making awkward small talk conversation until everyone is finished eating.” This was the immediate response my cousin, Payton, gave when I asked her what this meal meant her. It is not a stereotypical home cooked meal that my mom makes special using the recipe that has passed down in her family for generations. We have no recipe to recreate it. It does not come fresh from the oven, filling the house with warmth, comfort, and delicious smells, making everyone inside feel at home. There are no fancy place settings to serve it with at the dinner table. None of us really know how we came across it with real special or significant meaning behind why. Instead, it comes in a big brown paper bag, stapled shut, twice, and with a little receipt stuck to the side. Dumped onto a large serving plate or two, it is carried to the living room or outside for the whole family to eat. We only get my favorite meal on special occasions, a few times a year, but when we do, it means a laid back, full family meal, full of fun, laughter, and love.
Honestly, the name does not sound too appetizing: a Pu Pu Platter. It sounds like “poo”, right? I can promise you it tastes a whole lot better than it sounds. Consisting of piles of egg rolls, beef teriyaki, chicken teriyaki, chicken wings, chicken fingers, crab meat rangoons, and boneless spare ribs, there is always plenty to choose from for the whole family. As my cousin said, “It’s a communal meal. Everyone gets what they want and everyone is happy! A seemingly impossible event.” Every single time we get the same thing, we never try anything new. This, partially, is because we simply know what we want. When we get the platter, everyone has something they like and no one is left out. However, we also get the same order because it has become a comforting tradition. Trying something new is not the tradition, that specific meal is the tradition.
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Most Chinese restaurants have some version of a Pu Pu Platter as an option on their menu. However, we choose to order this meal from this one specific restaurant. Green Tea is just a small building, hidden among a line of small businesses, on the side of a main road that runs through the middle of Sanford, a small city a mere 45 minutes away from my home town. Most people drive right past it, likely more interested in the Dairy Queen or McDonalds situated on the opposite side of the street. This was a lucky but random find one day when looking up take out food when we found ourselves to be particularly lazy, but extremely hungry. Though it may seem random that we chose this restaurant over likely hundreds of others closer to our home, Sanford is not as random as it seems. It is mom’s hometown along with where my aunt and cousin live. Along with this, when heading to our camp in the summertime, like we do every weekend to stay, we have to pass right by my favorite little business. When I asked Payton why she thought I preferred Green Tea over any other Chinese option, she responded by saying, “It’s not much of a special occasion when you go to get take out food that’s only five or ten minutes away. You don’t go out of your way to get it, there’s no significance to it. Green Tea isn’t something you can get everyday because you’re so far away from it. It isn’t close to home, but it is close to your home in the summertime. It’s close to your family and, usually, it comes along with the rest of your family, not just another every night dinner table meal.” She seemed to be able to describe my feelings seamlessly. The location, like the meal, is a tradition and a special occasion. It rarely happens, but when it does it means I can be close to my family surrounding by the people I love.
Like most food from American Chinese restaurants, the meal is not exactly what one would describe as being “healthy”. On the contrary, it is covered in grease having been fried in oil. However, that is part of the point of the significance behind the meal. My parents, mainly my dad, are sticklers when it comes to eating a healthy, well balanced diet. That means a dinner of a protein, a vegetable, and a starch that all have to be completely finished before you may leave the dinner table. Therefore, on special occasions such as New Years Eve and my birthday, I jump at the opportunity to ask for this something special instead.
Only a few times a year do we get this. Every New Years Eve we pick it up and eat it in the living room watching the New Year’s Eve show or a movie. On my birthdays we do the same, this time with the rest of family piled into the living room along with us to talk and play games. Other than these two holidays, my mom and I will pick up a small platter a few times in the summer after a long day while on our way our camp on Wilson Lake when we want a quick and easy dinner. When this happens, we take it to the front lawn, sit with my grandparents, and watch the sunset while we talk about our days and the plan for the upcoming weekend and week.
Sitting around the living room, grabbing a quick bite of food in between turns of Pictionary and laughing at whatever new thing my grandma cannot seem to understand, whether it is the rules of the game, something on her phone, or the “outrageous” prices of tomatoes this week at Market Basket. This is what my favorite meal means to me. It is sitting by a glistening lake, watching as the sun begins to set, filling the sky with a mosaic of pinks, reds, and purples, and talking with my grandparents about the good old days, what is to come, or, once again, those darned tomatoes.
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RECIPES:
*Because my favorite food consists of so many parts, I included the recipes for three of my favorite foods in the platter.
Crab Rangoons
- 4 ounces of cream cheese, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 scallion, white and green parts, minced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 4 ounces crabmeat, picked over and cartilage or shells removed
- Cornstarch, for dusting
- 24 wonton squares (half a 12-ounce package)
- 1 large egg white, beaten with a pinch of salt until foamy
- Vegetable oil, for frying
- Mash the cream cheese, soy sauce, scallion, and garlic together in a bowl with a rubber spatula. Stir in the crabmeat and season with the hot red pepper sauce.
- Line a baking sheet with waxed paper and lightly dust it with cornstarch.
- Place a wonton in front of you, rotating it so it’s shaped like a diamond. Place a teaspoon of the filling in the center of the lower half of the wonton, brush the edges of the wonton with a little egg white, then fold the top of the wonton down over the filling to form a triangle. Press the center of the wonton gently to flatten the filling slightly, then press the edges of the wonton to seal. Hold the triangle in your hands. Bring the lower two tips of the triangle across the bulge in the center of the Rangoon to meet, overlapping the tips slightly, sort of as if the rangoon was wrapping its arms around itself and giving itself a hug. Seal the tips with a dab of egg white. Place the rangoon on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining filling and wontons.Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to fry (or up to 2 hours).
- Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C).
- Pour enough oil into a deep, heavy saucepan to fill it halfway up the sides. Place the pan over medium-high heat and wait until the oil registers 350°F (176°C) on a deep-frying thermometer. Line a baking sheet with a brown paper bag cut open. Working in batches to avoid crowding, add a few of the wontons to the oil and deep-fry, turning them as needed, until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Using a wire spider or a slotted spoon, transfer the Rangoons to the brown paper-lined baking sheet and keep warm in the oven while you repeat with the remaining rangoons.
Chicken Fingers
- 1/4 cup self-rising flour
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- Sift dry ingredients into a small bowl.
- In another bowl, slowly mix dry ingredients and water, being careful to avoid adding too much water.
- Heat up oil for deep-frying (360°F to 375°F).
- Slice chicken into thin strips, batter them, and deep fry until golden. Check one or two to make sure the chicken is cooked through.
Boneless Spare Ribs
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3/4 tsp red food coloring
- 1.25 lbs boneless spareribs
- Mix all ingredients except the meat and whisk thoroughly.
- Add meat and coat thoroughly with marinade sauce. Marinade overnight.
- Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.
- Drain marinade into a separate dish.
- Arrange Ribs in a baking pan spacing them evenly.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until cooked and tender. Use spare marinade sauce to baste Ribs periodically.
- Preheat Grill to approximately 350 degrees.
- Drain marinade into separate dish. Arrange ribs on the heated grill.
- Grill while periodically basting with extra marinade for about 25 minutes, or until charred and cooked through.
