chinese new year dinner

"You have to have fish" she said, with authority. "Fish, oysters, sea cucumber stewed with mushrooms and pork feet. Pork balls because they're round, prawns so you're always laughing in the new year. Yee sang, so we can toss it for prosperity, fat choy because it sounds like good luck. Chicken," she continued, "Chicken because after cooking all day, I want to eat something that I didn't have to cook myself." ...
Chinese New Year is a big deal around our place. And on New Year's Eve, after the biscuits have been made, the house cleaned thoroughly and brand new (preferably red) clothing has been donned, we eat. Each dish has significance - though none of us are sure how much of the 'significance' is significant and how much is merely a result of mostly accurate memories and "I think I remember Aunty X saying..."

yee-sang, ready to be tossed!

Yee-Sang is a Chinese New Year staple for our family (both local and extended). The meal starts with everyone grabbing a pair of chopsticks and tossing the salad around in the air - the higher you toss, the more prosperity in the coming year!

We purchase a box of yee-sang mix each year and add our own julienned carrot, lettuce and cucumber to the mix, as well as a generous amount of smoked salmon. My sister and I especially love the crunchy bits in the salad, so this year, Mum added some fried won-ton skins to the mix for extra crunch!

oysters with tetsuya vinaigrette

Oysters, also called Ho-Si are eaten for happy times, or good events in the coming year. We normally eat these dried, as part of the pork trotter and fat-choy stew below. Luckily (for me anyway), a quick family survey uncovered that Dad was the only one who enjoyed them cooked this way and freshly shucked oysters became part of our menu.

pork trotter & fat-choy stew

Fat Choy is eaten for good fortune. This dish is made thick with dark soy sauce, mushrooms, gelatinous pork trotter and fat-choy, or as my sister likes to say "the hair".

stir fried prawns

This is one of the more dubious inclusions. The word for prawn in Hokkien is "ha". Mum likes to tell us that we should eat prawns so that we laugh a lot in the coming year. The rest of us aren't so sure about that, but are happy to agree with the translation as long as it means we get to eat prawns!

deep fried pork balls

OH! These were so yummy! Pork mince, chinese mushrooms, shallots and egg, rolled into balls, tossed in breadcrumbs and deep fried to a deep golden brown. The Chinese obsession with round things comes into play here. Because all money used to be round, back in the day, it's thought that (seeing as round things attract each other?) by eating these, money will come your way!

whole steamed fish

By this stage, I was getting pretty full. But fish must be eaten, and eaten whole. The head and tail are served intact for happy beginnings and happy endings. And with the firm white flesh mixing with the flavours of ginger and coriander in my mouth, I was convinced of its effect almost immediately.

crispy skin chicken

This one was a buy-in. But seeing as chicken brings success (and seeing as Mum needed something to eat that she hadn't spent all day cooking herself), it had to be done. And no-one regretted the decision. Mmmmm.....

stir-fried veges with fat choy

You can never have too much fat choy in one sitting. But you definitely can have too much meat in one sitting. So I was glad for the vegetables, and I was glad for the end of dinner. I think I ate enough in this sitting to last me well into the New Year.

Eight dishes, four people, full tummies. Calls to family back in Malaysia, broken Hokkien and hurried cleaning. And then a quick trip up the North Shore to friends and dessert and games of mah-jong and screaming at the tennis until early the next day.