Lucky theme for the Chinese New Year
Felix with some dishes from his restaurant Felix Yu, Castillian Street. Felix Yu Restaurant Chinese New Year. Crisp Tiger Prawn with chinese glutinous rice wine. Pan seared monk fish fillet with serranoham. In miso sauce.
LUCKY food is the theme for celebrations of the Chinese new year.
The year of the dragon began on Monday and for many Chinese people it is an opportunity to celebrate with foods that symbolise good fortune.
Some of the lucky foods are a play on words where the word for the food sounds similar in Chinese to words that have lucky meanings. So for example the Chinese for bamboo shoots sounds similar to a phrase that means wishing everything will be well, a word for fish sounds similar to the word for surplus or having extra money so these foods are popular for the celebration.
Felix Yu, whose restaurant is in Castilian Street, Northampton, said a popular dish for business people around the new year celebrations is sun-dried oyster and sea moss. The word for sun dried oysters sounds like the phrase for good business. And Felix said: “The name of the sea moss sounds the same as good fortune,” so serving them together is a lucky combination popular with Chinese people.
Felix explained that sea moss is not very popular with non-Chinese customers though because it is black and fine and looks just like hair.
Pigs trotters are also served with sea moss he said because it represents having handfuls of good fortune.
How the dish looks when it is served can also be very symbolic. He likes to serve broccoli, straw mushrooms and crabmeat so that it looks like a flower on the plate. He said: “You lay out the broccoli like a flower around the edge of the plate then place the mushrooms in the middle and top with the crabmeat, because Chinese new year in China is spring time and in spring time flowers open up. When the flower blossoms it brings good fortune.”
To make this dish the broccoli is cooked for a minute in boiling water with a bit of salt and sugar then stir fried with garlic and oyster sauce and a little wine. The mushrooms are boiled for a minute, drained and stir fried with ginger, oyster sauce, sugar and salt and a little corn starch to thicken it. The crab meat is cooked with salt, white pepper and a little sugar in water or stock. Thicken it with some corn starch and add a small amount of egg white to give it a smooth consistency and bring out the flavour.
Another tradition that is growing in popularity in Hong Kong, he said, is serving layers of food in a wooden bucket. It is an idea that stems from an old story about a king who had lost a battle and who was served food in this way by some villagers who wanted to please him.
Susan Lam of the Wok Inn on Sheep Street, Northampton, said that noodles were considered lucky at new year. She said: “They have different types of noodles and one of them is very long. Any type of noodles mean long life and health and wealth.”
Other foods are considered lucky because they are thought to look a bit like a lucky item so cashew nuts and spring rolls symbolise gold because their shapes are thought to be similar to gold bars.
Susan celebrated on Sunday with friends and family and the highlight was a big talbot fish cooked with ginger and spring onions.
She said “We celebrated in our restaurant on the Sunday with my friends and relatives. We had normal mixed starters and then the fish and our friends enjoyed the food so much.”
Chinese new year was a little earlier than usual this year but celebrations can go on for 10 days after the actual date. This weekend the Wok Inn is continuing celebrations by giving diners fortune cookies.
Sweet and sour chicken by Yuet Fat Lam from the Wok Inn
Ingredients
Batter
2 spoons of potato starch or cornflour
1 medium egg
1 tsp of olive oil
1 chicken breast cut into strips.
Sauce
1 tsp pineapple juice
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp tomato ketchup
2 tsp water
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Some ginger
Method
1. Put the chicken into a mixing bowl and mix with the other batter ingredients.
2. Half fill a frying pan with oil. Pre-heat the oil and then carefully put the chicken in and stir gently. Deep fry until golden.
3. For the sauce, mix all the ingredients together in a pan and bring to the boil. If it needs thickening, mix some potato starch or cornflour with some cold water to make a paste and add this to the sauce mixture.
4. Finally mix the sauce and the chicken together.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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