Happy Lunar New Year! Monday, January 23rd marked the most important holiday in Chinese culture. Millions (actually billions) of Chinese in China and across the globe will be ringing in the year of the dragon for the next several days. Celebrating the New Year means being with family and eating good foods that attract, wealthy, happiness, luck, and overall prosperity in the coming year. So if you would like to celebrate and make a traditional Chinese New Year inspired dish, take a look at some of these ideas.
First Dish
Begin your meal with a dish that symbolizes wealth. Dumplings and pot stickers alike represent that wealth will surely be in your near future. Using pork or beef, and some wonton wrappers you can either steam these tasty morsels in a bamboo basket or sear these pockets for a crispy snack.
Main Dish
Noodles symbolize longevity and the longer the noodle, the better. Be sure not to cut your noodles during cooking, as this is a bad sign. Also, shrimp is thought to bring happiness to those enjoying them. Mixing both noodles and shrimp in a pan-seared Sichuan shrimp and mung bean noodle dish will ensure 2012 is a fulfilling year for you and your loved ones. Add Sichuan peppercorns for some heat and soy sauce and Chinese black vinegar that really bring out the flavors.
End it off right
Of course it wouldn’t be a complete meal without the fortune cookie at the end. Although Chinese have been stuffing slips of paper lucky sayings into their deserts for many centuries, the fortune cookies was actually invented in the 1900s in San Francisco. That doesn’t its not still tradition. This recipe infuses the cookie batter with matcha green tea for an added yummy flavor.