Dumplings a big hit for special reunion dinner
Print Edition
NOELI Zhang was born and raised in Shanghai, while her husband, Benjamin Bilteryst, comes from France. Married for seven years, they celebrate Chinese New Year with family in Shanghai.
Before they were married, Zhang said her husband didn’t view the festival as very important because it’s not part of his culture. However, he later came to enjoy the celebrations — especially setting off firecrackers.
“Every year we welcome the God of Wealth,” said Zhang, owner of Noeli Gallery in Shanghai. “And he offered to let off the firecrackers.”
“My father used to be best at this, now they do it together.”
In the past, Bilteryst would gather other friends who are spending the holiday in Shanghai to let off fireworks, Zhang said.
And for the New Year’s Eve dinner, the couple and their two children usually eat with Zhang’s parents. Sometimes Zhang’s mother-in-law comes for Christmas and stays a bit longer for the Spring Festival and joins them.
“My husband enjoys dumplings, and also rice dumplings, which are like a dessert,” she said.
Their dinner mixes north and south, and usually Zhang’s father cooks it at home.
For cold dishes, they usually have traditional Shanghai delicacies like sixikaofu (四喜烤麸, steamed gluten braised in sauce), maodou (毛豆, green soybean), xunyu (醺鱼, deep fried fish braised in sauce) and jiangya (酱鸭, duck seasoned in soy sauce).
The main hot dishes include mutton with vermicelli in a pot, yanduxian
(腌笃鲜, a soup cooked with bamboo shoots, salted and fresh pork), frost-touched greens stir-fried with shiitake mushroom, fish and various meat and seafood dishes.
“I love my father’s stir-fried river eel, but my husband doesn’t eat it because he thinks it’s a little scary,” Zhang said. “I also like squid with celery and we usually steam a fish, such as a mandarin fish.”
Her father make dumplings, mostly with Chinese chives with pork or Chinese cabbage with pork for the filling.
“My grandfather was a chef and I think that’s how my father learned to make them,” Zhang said.
The family would also have babaofan (八宝饭, eight treasures rice pudding) as part of the dinner.
“My husband and mother-in-law especially like dishes made with sticky rice,” she said.
There is also a special dish: fried rice with ganlancai (橄榄菜, a preserved vegetable dish made with mustard leaves and olive) and green beans.
“It’s a must-have for my husband and his mother — they like the fried rice very much,” Zhang said.
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