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Hangzhou classics for New Year's Eve feast
By Xu Wenwen |
February 7, 2013, Thursday
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Online Edition
Online Edition
Chinese Lunar New Year's Eve is coming Saturday, and Chinese people spare no effort to arrange the best and most important dinner of the year, nian ye fan.
Nian ye fan, literally New Year's Eve dinner, is the time of family reunion and everyone is supposed to be home for dinner with all the relatives.
For generations, Chinese people have devised delicious and auspicious dishes for this banquet.
In Hangzhou, which is rich in fresh produce and aquatic foods, the nian ye fan menu is especially inviting.
It has been updated over the years but classics remain.
Last Thursday Shanghai Daily introduced some Hangzhou cold dishes and desserts for the New Year's feast.
Today we look at main courses and hot dishes.
Eight-treasure dish(掳?卤|2?)
Serving the best quality foods and those that represent fortune (some because they sound auspicious) are principles of the dinner.
The Eight-treasure dish combines eight vegetables: bean sprouts, bok choy, fungus, celery, radish, bamboo shoots, dried bean curd and fried bean curd. Sometimes soybeans and water chestnuts are added.
The recipe is simple: just fry all the ingredients together. The dish is filled with fresh aromas, tastes and textures.
"Housewives prepare many ingredients and figure out a way to use all of them," says 62-year-old Zhao Fenjing, a housewife who inherited the dish from her grandmother and mother and makes for every Chinese Lunar New Year.
"All leafy green vegetables are avoided because the dish will be reheated forthe next day and the leaves will wilt," she says.
Fried winter bamboo shoots and dongyancai(3鈥?t??)
Dongyancai (????2?) is pickled bok choy, or Chinese cabbage; it's sour, salty and crunchy.
In winter Hangzhou people stock up on bok choy to make dongyancai, which literally means vegetable preserved in winter.
It is considered essential on the Lunar New Year's Eve table, since it adds diversity and makes a good appetizer. The classic dish is dongyancai fried with winter bamboo shoots. Both are crispy in texture and the bamboo shots absorb the juice of the pickled vegetable. The sour aroma of pickled cabbage is balanced by the mild, fresh sent of bamboo.
It's easy to make. Wash dongyancai and winter bamboo (the stout ones - slim ones are spring bamboo), cut into slices and fry them together. Pork, mushroom and peppers can be added.
It's an eye-opener to see the traditional way of making dongyancai - barefoot people stomp on the vegetables in a large vat.
Large leaves of bok choy are dried in the sun for two days and then pickled in a giant vat, typically containing 25 kilograms of pickled bok choy. The weight of stomping people compresses the vegetables and removes the air, otherwise the oxygen would make the vegetables oxidize and go sour.
Today most people buy commercially and hygienically made - no barefoot stompers - pickled cabbage at supermarkets.
Lasun (preserved bamboo shoot) braised with porkin soy sauce(脿掳??茅?猫a)
Bamboo is abundant in Zhejiang Province, where there are many varieties harvested at different times, including fresh and tender spring bamboo shoots, crispy winter bamboo shoots and Moso bamboo shoots.
Moso bamboo shoots are quite large. They are preserved in lime to concentrate the taste. It's later cut in half and then in segments. It's quite beefy in texture.
Preserved Moso bamboo shoot is called lasun because the 12th month of the lunar year is called layue, and the shoot is mostly served in winter, and a Lunar New Year's Eve food.
Lasun itself is very dry and not salty. It goes well with pork and soy sauce. The bamboo absorbs the pork fat.
The dish is good both hot and cold with congealed jelly. It goes well as topping for congee in the morning.
Nian ye fan, literally New Year's Eve dinner, is the time of family reunion and everyone is supposed to be home for dinner with all the relatives.
For generations, Chinese people have devised delicious and auspicious dishes for this banquet.
In Hangzhou, which is rich in fresh produce and aquatic foods, the nian ye fan menu is especially inviting.
It has been updated over the years but classics remain.
Last Thursday Shanghai Daily introduced some Hangzhou cold dishes and desserts for the New Year's feast.
Today we look at main courses and hot dishes.
Eight-treasure dish(掳?卤|2?)
Serving the best quality foods and those that represent fortune (some because they sound auspicious) are principles of the dinner.
The Eight-treasure dish combines eight vegetables: bean sprouts, bok choy, fungus, celery, radish, bamboo shoots, dried bean curd and fried bean curd. Sometimes soybeans and water chestnuts are added.
The recipe is simple: just fry all the ingredients together. The dish is filled with fresh aromas, tastes and textures.
"Housewives prepare many ingredients and figure out a way to use all of them," says 62-year-old Zhao Fenjing, a housewife who inherited the dish from her grandmother and mother and makes for every Chinese Lunar New Year.
"All leafy green vegetables are avoided because the dish will be reheated forthe next day and the leaves will wilt," she says.
Fried winter bamboo shoots and dongyancai(3鈥?t??)
Dongyancai (????2?) is pickled bok choy, or Chinese cabbage; it's sour, salty and crunchy.
In winter Hangzhou people stock up on bok choy to make dongyancai, which literally means vegetable preserved in winter.
It is considered essential on the Lunar New Year's Eve table, since it adds diversity and makes a good appetizer. The classic dish is dongyancai fried with winter bamboo shoots. Both are crispy in texture and the bamboo shots absorb the juice of the pickled vegetable. The sour aroma of pickled cabbage is balanced by the mild, fresh sent of bamboo.
It's easy to make. Wash dongyancai and winter bamboo (the stout ones - slim ones are spring bamboo), cut into slices and fry them together. Pork, mushroom and peppers can be added.
It's an eye-opener to see the traditional way of making dongyancai - barefoot people stomp on the vegetables in a large vat.
Large leaves of bok choy are dried in the sun for two days and then pickled in a giant vat, typically containing 25 kilograms of pickled bok choy. The weight of stomping people compresses the vegetables and removes the air, otherwise the oxygen would make the vegetables oxidize and go sour.
Today most people buy commercially and hygienically made - no barefoot stompers - pickled cabbage at supermarkets.
Lasun (preserved bamboo shoot) braised with porkin soy sauce(脿掳??茅?猫a)
Bamboo is abundant in Zhejiang Province, where there are many varieties harvested at different times, including fresh and tender spring bamboo shoots, crispy winter bamboo shoots and Moso bamboo shoots.
Moso bamboo shoots are quite large. They are preserved in lime to concentrate the taste. It's later cut in half and then in segments. It's quite beefy in texture.
Preserved Moso bamboo shoot is called lasun because the 12th month of the lunar year is called layue, and the shoot is mostly served in winter, and a Lunar New Year's Eve food.
Lasun itself is very dry and not salty. It goes well with pork and soy sauce. The bamboo absorbs the pork fat.
The dish is good both hot and cold with congealed jelly. It goes well as topping for congee in the morning.
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