Festive delicacies: Lau showing his dishes in this screencap.
JOHOR BARU: After going viral for single-handedly preparing a 14-dish Christmas feast, a 15-year-old boy has once again left the Internet in awe of his cooking skills.
Ricardo Leonel Lau, who captured the hearts – and stomachs – of millions worldwide with his extravagant Christmas delights less than two months ago, is now back with an equally impressive Chinese New Year spread.
“I am more familiar with Western food as I have been cooking it longer, but making Chinese dishes is also not much of an issue for me as I’ve had some experience. I find Chinese food fun and unique to prepare.
“I also have all the necessary tools and utensils needed for Asian cooking at home, including a wok. Plus, my family prefers Chinese food,” he said.
For his family’s Chinese New Year reunion dinner, the teenager whipped up eight dishes, including poached chicken, Cantonese steamed fish, abalone with broccoli and Hong Kong egg tarts.
“The preparation was a bit rushed this time. I had to visit another supermarket to get several missing ingredients that I could not find at a wet market earlier that day.
“I also only started planning it seriously a few days before the dinner because I was busy with schoolwork,” he said.
The eldest of three siblings worked non-stop from 7.30am to 5.30pm, cooking the specials while also filming the process.
“It was a great experience, but pretty exhausting as there were a lot of dishes to wash. Thankfully, my mum helped me with the task.”
Lau, who has been posting cooking videos on social media since 2021, also had to visit a pharmacy on the day to treat some injuries sustained while cooking.
“I got a few burns on my hand from oil splashes and accidentally touching a smoking-hot plate, but accidents like these are inevitable in the kitchen,” he said.
At press time, Lau’s video of the feast has garnered over two million views and more than 138,000 likes on Instagram.
Previously, a video of him preparing a Yuletide spread in December amassed over seven million views and even fascinated famous people such as US reality TV star Khloe Kardashian, Canadian model Winnie Harlow and US-based chef Steven Gao.
