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January 15, 2015

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Simple nianyefan recipes to try at home

By Xu Wenwen | January 15, 2015, Thursday | Print Edition

TO stand out from competitors many restaurants choose to be creative these days but when it comes to nianyefan, Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner, “traditional” is the way to go.

The big meal needs to satisfy both seniors and the young generation. For this reason only local foods can usually tick off everyone’s wish list.

Restaurants serving Hangzhou cuisine have already prepared nianyefan menus. A closer look shows the menus are definitely “local” and “traditional.”

Hangzhou Restaurant’s nianyefan menu includes eight-treasure dish, Longjing shrimp, crispy deep-fried duck, and preserved pork steamed with bamboo shoots.

Louwailou Restaurant is serving up Song’s fish soup, pig feet braised in soy sauce, duck and bamboo shoot pot, oil-poured chicken, and crab steamed with salted pork on its Chinese New Year menu.

And Louwailou also provides semi-finished dishes including beggar’s chicken, smoked fish, duck in soy sauce, and eight-treasure rice pudding. Customers can order these dishes and follow the restaurant’s instructions to finish cooking them at home.

Another old Hangzhou restaurant, Zhiweiguan Restaurant, has semi-finished products for Chinese New Year including sweet lotus filled with glutinous rice, steamed small buns and pork braised with preserved vegetable.

All these dishes are either famous Hangzhou dishes or typical foods made at home by locals.

Here’s a few special Hangzhou recipes. But for those who don’t have the time or trust their culinary skills, pop over to Louwailou or Zhiweiguan.

Eight-treasure dish

Serving the best foods and those that symbolize prosperity are essential for the Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner.

Eight-treasure dish combines bean sprouts, bok choy, fungus, celery, radish, bamboo shoots, dried bean curd and fried bean curd. Sometimes soybeans and water chestnuts are added. It does not have to be exactly eight vegetables as “eight” is just a good number for the name since it is considered a lucky number.

The recipe is simple. Just fry all the ingredients together. The dish is filled with a fresh scent, taste and nice blend of textures.

Soy sauce duck

Jiangya or soy sauce duck is a traditional Hangzhou delicacy, especially in winter. Many households make the dish at this time of year as it keeps better in low temperatures.

The flesh tastes salty and chewy while the skin is a bit greasy, making for a nice balance.

The authentic recipe calls for marinating the duck in soy sauce for three or four days. Pepper, ginger, rice wine and other seasonings can be added, but the entire duck should be submerged in the sauce, and the container covered to keep out air and bacteria.

The meat absorbs the flavors from the sauce. Once this is done it’s time to hang the duck outdoors to dry in the sun and air for about a week. It is often steamed before being served in slices although it can also be eaten cold.

Old duck pot

A classic Hangzhou homemade dish, this is usually served at family feasts, including nianyefan of course.

A fair amount of care is required when selecting the ingredients and stewing the duck.

First, it has to be a shelduck, a large goose-like duck, to ensure it has less fat and body odor. Dried bamboo shoot and Jinhua ham are the other main ingredients. The dried bamboo shoot needs to be in one piece as the root is used to absorb the oil in the soup. The tender part and its crunchy fibers end up tasting better than the meat after being cooked in the broth.

Stewing the duck requires three steps starting with boiling and scalding it for five minutes, throwing away the water and washing the duck to remove all the blood froth. Next add the bamboo shoot, ham and ginger into a crockery pot with hot water, then simmer with rice wine for three hours.

The smell, taste and size of the duck never fail to impress guests.

Oil-poured chicken

Young locals may not so familiar with this dish, but seniors in Hangzhou know it was invented by Hangzhou Restaurant.

The recipe is simple but patience is required.

Boil a small tender chicken in lightly salted water. Once the meat is cold, pour soy sauce onto it over and over until the skin is flavored and looks darker. Now deep fry it. The skin turns out crispy and savory while the meat remains tender and juicy.

Eight-treasure rice pudding

Ba bao fan, literally “eight treasure rice" is a must for nianyefan.

This dessert is made of glutinous rice with red bean paste and topped with jujube, lotus seeds, dried longan, melon seeds and preserved fruit. Again the eight is symbolic of luck, not the number of ingredients.

Start by steaming the glutinous rice, then put jujube, lotus seed and other ingredients in a bowl. Next place the rice on top while adding the red bean paste into the rice. Steam the bowl again for 20 minutes and take out the rice pudding by turning the bowl upside down.

Hangzhou


 

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