Tag Archives: Chinese New Year foods

Happy Year of the Tiger!

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Art by Alan Lau

Happy Chinese New Year! Khiung Hee Fat Choy ????! It’s a time of renewal and feasting. In 2022, February 1, marks the start of the Year of the Tiger. On the Chinese horoscope, each year is dominated by an animal sign: Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey rooster, dog, and pig. Each animal has special characteristics. This is the year of the tiger. Some horoscopes predict this year symbolizes spontaneity, novelty, and determinism.

A family reunion feast is central to the Chinese New Year celebration. The table is traditionally filled with foods that send auspicious messages to attract wealth, luck, success, unity, longevity.


As I plan the menu for our family’s new year feast, I’m looking through The Hakka Cookbook for ideas. I like our meals to be a cooperative effort, sort of an organized potluck plus cooking lesson. It’s easier to share cooking duties and hopefully everyone can learn something new. For my grandchildren, I try to include one cooking activity. In the past, we have made won tons, dumplings, and pot stickers. This year we may make Stuffed Tofu (pages 31, 33). The Hakka invented stuffed tofu when they could not find wheat flour in their new home in the south to make the dumplings they ate in the former home in northern China.

Natalie Com Liu's Tofu topped with Pork
Natalie Com Liu’s Tofu Topped with Pork from The Hakka Cookbook page 33
Hakka Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce
Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce from The Hakka Cookbook page 104

Noodles represent long life. I like the dark, umami-rich flavor of Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce (page 104). Or perhaps we’ll cook Garlic Noodles and Shrimp (page 193), sort of a Hakka-style Chow Mein. Fish is a must-have on Chinese New Year table. The fish brings surplus and abundance to the new year. I like the Steamed Fish with Green Onions (page 39) or the Braised Fish in Black Bean Sauce (page 137). Steaming or braising keeps the delicate flesh moist and is so easy. A green vegetable represents growth in business. I love the simplicity of the stir-fried Chinese Broccoli in Sweet Rice Wine (page 230).

Hakka salt-baked chicken
Hakka Salt-baked Chicken from The Hakka Cookbook (page 64)

Possibly we may cook the famous Hakka Salt-baked Chicken (page 64) or some of the easier variations. For a special dish, consider making the Braised Chicken stuffed with Preserved Mustard Greens (page 233). Or maybe we’ll buy a Chinese roast duck.

For me, Chinese New Year is about food and family. Khiung Hee Fat Choy ????! Happy New Year!

Good luck symbols of Chinese New Year
Symbols of good luck and prosperity for Chinese New Year

Chinese banquet in one big pan

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Poon choi at Chung Shing Restaurant in Tai Po, New Territories of Hong Kong
Puhn choi at Chung Shing Restaurant in In Tai Po, New Territories of Hong Kong in 2005

A Chinese banquet in a wash basin? We gasped when the waitress set a huge metal pan filled with a mountain of food before us. The pan, literally a wash basin, held a layered multi-course feast known as basin feast (puhn choi, pen cai, poon choi). It’s a popular choice for family gatherings such as Chinese New Years, weddings, and family reunions because everyone eats from one dish which symbolizes unity. Guests gather around the basin and literally eat from the top to the bottom, working their way through the different courses.

This specialty comes from the New Territories of Hong Kong where many Hakka live. One story about the origin of puhn choi suggests that when Emperor Bing of Song moved south in the late Sung period, his large entourage overwhelmed the small villages. Inventive villagers simply didn’t have enough dishes to feed the large group so they piled the food in the biggest containers they had–wash basins.

Basin Feast (Puhn Choi) from The Hakka Cookbook
Basin Feast (puhn choi) from The Hakka Cookbook, page 84

Centuries later, the basin feast has morphed into a popular celebration dish in Hong Kong. Now, this one-pan Chinese banquet finds it way to San Francisco. This recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle lists several local restaurants that offer puhn choi for take-out for Chinese New Year. Because a multi-course feast comes layered in one big pan, it works well for a portable take-out Chinese banquet for a family. Restaurants go upscale, serving up expensive ingredients for these special occasion feasts. Or if you like, make this humbler, make-ahead home-style version featured in The Hakka Cookbook, page 84.

Happy New Year! Khiung Hee Fat Choy! ????!

Chinese New Year feast

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Happy Chinese New Year!

Plan your menu for the symbol-laden Chinese New Year feast now. The lunar new year is fast approaching.

In 2020, January 25 marks the beginning of the Chinese year 4717. The celebration marks a time of renewal, marked by food, traditions, and festivities. On the Chinese horoscope, each year is dominated by an animal sign: Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey rooster, dog, and pig. Each animal has special characteristics. This is the year of the rat.

A family reunion feast highlights the New Year celebration. The table is traditionally filled with foods that send auspicious messages to attract wealth, luck, success, unity, longevity.
As I plan the menu for our family’s new year feast, I’m looking through The Hakka Cookbook for ideas. I like our meals to be a cooperative effort, sort of an organized potluck plus cooking lesson. It’s easier to share cooking duties and hopefully everyone can learn something new.

For my grandchildren, I try to include one cooking activity. In the past, we have made wontons, dumplings, and pot stickers. This year we may make Stuffed Tofu (pages 31, 33). The Hakka invented stuffed tofu when they could not find wheat flour in their new home in the south to make the dumplings they ate in their former home in northern China. Instead of putting the meat filling in a wheat flour wrapper, they stuffed the filling into chunks of tofu.

Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce from The Hakka Cookbook

Noodles represent long life. I like the dark, umami-rich flavor of Noodles with Mushroom Pork Sauce (page 104). Or perhaps we’ll cook Garlic Noodles and Shrimp (page 193), sort of a Hakka-style Chow Mein.

Fish is a must-have on Chinese New Year table. The fish brings surplus and abundance to the new year. I like Steamed Fish with Green Onions (page 39). Steaming keeps the delicate flesh moist and is so easy.

A green vegetable represents growth in business. I love the simplicity of the stir-fried Chinese Broccoli in Sweet Rice Wine (page 230).

Possibly we may cook the famous Hakka Salt-baked Chicken (page 64) or some of the easier variations or maybe we’ll buy a Chinese roast duck. What’s on your menu?

Hakka Salt-Baked Chicken from The Hakka Cookbook

For me, Chinese New Year is about food and family. Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous New Year! ????! Khiung Hee Fat Choy! Gong Hay Fat Choy!

Healthy foods for Chinese New Year

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Savory Pounded Tea Rice

Today is the 7th day of the Lunar New Year. According to ChineseAmericanFamily.com The seventh day commemorates Nu Wa, the ancient goddess who is believed to have created mankind from yellow clay. On this day, Chinese people eat healthy foods with auspicious meanings. For the Hakka, that dish might be lui cha (aka lei cha, thunder tea). Several variations exist from savory to sweet.

This dish claims to cure almost any health issue. This cure-all reputation originated almost 2000 years ago when in a crucial battle, a general ordered a Hakka doctor to treat his plaque-stricken troops. The doctor prescribed a tea made from pounded seeds, nuts, and tea leaves. When the sick troops drank the tea they miraculously recovered.

Vegetable Tea

In The Hakka Cookbook, you’ll find recipes for the Savory Pounded Tea Rice from Malaysia on page 119 and Pounded Tea with Sweets from Taiwan on page 99. Loh Sye Moi from Malaysia serves a simpler related soup-like dish she calls Vegetable Tea (page 113). Although it does not include tea leaves, it includes many vegetables and toasted seeds and nuts.

Many of the ingredients in these dishes have auspicious meanings. Green vegetables symbolize close family ties. Peanuts promote health, long life, prosperity, continuous growth, wealth and good fortune, stability. Seeds symbolize fertility. Walnuts promise happiness for the whole family.

On this day consider celebrating humans by eating foods that promote your good health. May the Year of the Pig bring you good health, prosperity, and abundance!

Free Chinese New Year event tonight

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Chinese New Year: Foods and Traditions: Tonight, Monday, February 4, 2019, I will be giving a talk/slide show/ cooking demo at the Menlo Park Library. I will also include an introduction about Hakka history and cuisine. Please join me tonight. Bring your friends.

Chinese New Year: Foods and Traditions

February 4, Monday, 6 to 7:30 pm

Menlo Park Library, 800 Alma St., Menlo Park, CA 94025

Contact: John Weaver jnweaver@menlopark.org 650-330-2501

Adults and teens only

Free, advance registration not needed

Chinese New Year foods

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Chinese New Year symbols Wishing you a prosperous new year!  Khiung Hee Fat Choy!  Welcome to the Chinese year 4713 on the lunar calendar that begins on February 19, 2015.

This is the year of the goat, (also called ram or sheep). Chinese celebrate for about two weeks with family reunions, festive banquets, symbolic decorations, red envelopes filled with money, and good wishes. The new year signals a time for renewal and is also called The Spring Festival.

Many foods eaten during the celebration have symbolic meanings. They may resemble or their name sounds like something that is auspicious. For instance spring rolls look like gold bars, kumquats resemble gold coins, open clams represent new opportunities, green vegetables suggest growth in business, noodles symbolize long life.

In preparation for talks I am giving later this month, I posted a question in an international Hakka group on Facebook. I asked them “Do you serve any special Hakka dishes for Chinese New Year?”

Here are some of the answers I received. Some are regional specialties or Hakka classics. Some are fancy dishes; others beloved humble family favorites. Responses came from Hakka from all over the world so the spelling for the Chinese names may differ than what you know. Maybe you will see some of your favorites here. 

Pork Belly with Preserved Mustard Greens

Pork Belly with Preserved Mustard Greens

  • Pork belly with preserved mustard greens (kiu ngiuk moi choi)
  • Steamed minced pork with egg (choo nyuk jin gai choon)
  • ABC soup (lo song tong): soup with potato, carrot, onion, red dates, dry groundnuts, goji berries, meat or chicken carcass
  • Steamed fish with pickled mustard greens, red dates, tomato, and lily buds
  • Fried duck with plum sauce
  • Yellow wine chicken (wong jiu gai)
  • Pineapple chicken
  • Buddhist vegetarian stew (lo hon zai) Eaten on the first day of new year
  • Steamed chicken with salt (pak zm gai)
  • Fish maw soup (oem biao tong)
  • Sweet and sour duck (son moi ap)
  • Braised stuffed oysters with fat choy, and chestnuts (ngiong haw see)
  • Slice of pork liver wrapped in caul fat
  • Steamed fish with Chinese white radish in sweet and sour sauce (lo ped oem)
  • California squid with salted mustard green (ham choy)
  • Dried squid with celery
  • Stir-fried chicken with arrow root and vegetables
  • Surinamese Hakka-style chow mein made with spaghettini
  • Eight treasures duck (pat mui ap)
  • Black bean beef bone soup

What’s your favorite Chinese New Year dish? Here are some Hakka specialties featured in The Hakka Cookbook.  Have a delicious and Happy New Year! Khiung Hee Fat Choy!