A Simple Guide to a Ferociously Good Chinese New Year
Some traditional Chinese New Year foods are not for the novice cook. Turnip cakes, taro cakes, and nian gao, a glutinous rice flour pudding, are best left to the local Chinese market or restaurant. But many popular New Year's foods consumed for luck, prosperity, wealth, and health, are simple enough to prepare for most households, Chinese or not.
Here is a simple guide to ringing in the Year of the Dragon at home.
Dumplings: Who doesn’t love a good dumpling? The Chinese certainly do. Dumplings, believed to resemble ancient gold ingots, are eaten at New Years to usher in a prosperous year to come. If you can find dumpling wrappers at the store, try making them at home. Even if you don’t own a food processor, filling can be made in a snap. Simply mix some combination of ground chicken and pork with grated ginger, finely minced green onion, mashed garlic, ground pepper, and soy sauce. Try your hand at filling by folding the wrapper in half to make a triangle, sealing it with water and crimping the edges. Practice makes perfect. Next place the dumplings into a lightly oiled steamer basket or pan fry until crispy and golden. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Trader Joe’s; their frozen chicken dumplings are a completely acceptable substitute to homemade.
Spring Rolls: Otherwise known as egg rolls in your average Americanized Chinese restaurant, these slender tubes are made for frying. Try a filling of sautéed mushrooms with some ground pork and bean sprouts, a bit of cabbage and maybe some grated carrot. Season the Chinese way with soy, garlic, ginger, and perhaps a drizzle of sesame oil. Fill each wrapper with a scant amount of filling then roll nice and tight like a burrito but the size of a mini cigar. Fry till golden and enjoy while piping hot.
Noodles: Long and uncut, noodles are for longevity this time of year. See what your store has available and improvise. Most stores carry some sort of lo mein noodles. Thin, curly, and wheat based, theses are perfect in a stir-fry mixed up with whatever vegetables and protein you have on hand.
Fish: The Chinese name for fish sounds very much like the phrase “surpluses” or “save more”. Therefore fish is almost always on the Chinese New Year table. A whole cooked fish eaten on New Year’s Eve or held over till the next day portends a year to come with more money, earned and saved. If fish heads are not your thing, pick up some nice, thick fish fillets from the market like snapper, halibut, or even fileted trout. Try steaming the fish with Chinese aromatics--here come the ginger, garlic, green onions, and soy sauce again along with some rice wine or dry white wine.
When the spread is ready, set out everything family style on a red cloth, the color of Chinese celebrations. Eat for health, wealth, and happiness, and this year of the Dragon promises to be ferociously good.
Made with cilantro, snapper fillets, salt and pepper, rice wine or dry white wine, fresh ginger, soy sauce, garlic, green onions, sesame oil
Serves/Makes: 4
- 1 1/2 pound snapper fillets
- salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons rice wine or dry white wine
- 1 piece (1-inch size) fresh ginger
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 bunch green onions
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- cilantro
Rinse fillets and pat dry. Cut into four equal sized portions if not already done. Score skin side of the fillets. Season with salt and pepper on all sides.
Peel and finely mince ginger. Mince garlic. Mix garlic, ginger, wine, and soy sauce in a pie plate. Add fillets and turn to coat in the mixture. Let sit in the marinade while setting up steamer.
Set up a large pot or wok with a steamer insert. Add a couple of inches of water and bring to a boil. Find a plate with a bit of a lip that fits inside the basket or insert. Remove green tops from the onions, setting aside two. With the rest of the green tops, make a bed for the fish on the plate.
Once water is boiling, place fillets on the green onion bed on the plate, then place the plate on the steamer basket. Pour remaining marinade over fish. Place lid on the pot and steam for 7-10 minutes until fish is flaky and cooked through.
While fish is cooking, mince remaining green onion tops on a severe angle. Place fish on a platter for service. Drizzle over sesame oil, sprinkle on green slice green onions and garnish with cilantro leaves.
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