Chinese New Year: Simple Noodle Soup

Mushroom and Bok Choy Noodle Soup

Any excuse for noodles! But here, the soup brings it all together.

To a base chicken stock, add slices of ginger, garlic, spring onions (the white part), soy sauce and simmer for 10-15 minutes, removing aromatics. Taste for seasoning. Pre-cook dried noodles in a separate pot of boiling water, drain and set aside.

I experimented with the mushroom (I had portobello, but dried shiitake would be ideal, especially for adding the hydration liquid to the soup base) - pan-frying half in reserved chicken fat for super flavour (there is no vegetarian alternative for flavour here), leaving half raw to be cooked by the soup.

To assemble // Over a spoonful of chicken fat (optional, but inspired by Japanese ramen preparation), place cooked noodles in serving bowl. Soft poach an egg separately (or prepare a boiled egg), while bringing soup back up to a gentle boil and poaching bok choy for up to a minute, until just cooked. Remove and arrange with noodles. Add mushrooms and place egg atop. Add soup to bowl, gently pouring over everything to reheat. Leftover chicken would be a most welcome addition.

Chinese New Year Dumplings

Goats, Westport, New Zealand

On February 19th, we welcomed in the year of the goat*. This marked the beginning of Chinese New Year, one of my favourite occasions to celebrate. As a person of Chinese descent, I've grown up with various traditions surrounding the 16-day holiday (including washing my hair on Chinese New Year's Eve to go into the new year cleansed of the year previous, and prepared to receive the festival season's luck and fortunes); and, of course it has always involved food.
*Or sheep, or ram - the Chinese character yáng 羊 covers all three hooved animals, requiring an additional preceding character to clarify, e.g. shān yáng 山羊 translates to goat specifically (shān 山 means mountain).

As with everything surrounding the Chinese New Year celebrations, there are symbolic foods you are encouraged to eat to invite good luck and prosperity in the coming year. The auspicious symbolism is derived from both the pronunciation or appearance of food being translatable to words or objects which inspire luck, wealth, or personal success and growth.

The foods vary across the different regions of China as well as different countries altogether. For example, in Singapore and Malaysia (where my family are from), a favourite dish to ring in the new year is the Yusheng (鱼生) or 'Prosperity Toss' salad platter. It consists typically of slices of raw fish (salmon in my experience), various (yet specific) shredded vegetables, crunchy crackers, peanuts, sesame seeds, and a slightly sweet/sour plum sauce, rice vinegar, lime and sesame oil dressing. It arrives at the table as a platter of ingredients, and the tradition is to stand with your table to toss the salad together, while reciting auspicious phrases or wishes. When I took my non-Chinese friends to do this last week, we simply said a prolonged Yum Sing ('cheers') during the toss, as I remembered doing growing up when we enjoyed the dish in a large setting of up to 20 tables doing it simultaneously. It's been a few years since my last Yusheng salad, so I relished reenacting the tradition and sharing it with friends who had never experienced it before.

The Yusheng platter at Yang Ming Yuan, Princes Street, Cork - seasonings, e.g. pepper, are inside the red envelopes

After moving out of home and missing out on my father's annual organised CNY celebrations and banquets, my go-to Chinese New Year celebration (and everyday comfort) food has been dumplings (jiaozi, 饺子). Last year, I made my first dumpling wrappers from scratch and was stoked with how easy it was (2 parts flour + up to 1 part just-boiled water + time). So last week, I decided to go all out and buy the special high-gluten flour from the Chinese supermarket which is supposedly ideal for dumpling wrappers.

Eating in... Hong Kong

When I discovered that the cheapest way to get from the Philippines to Malaysia was via Hong Kong, I was ecstatic. Long on the list of my desired stopovers, I have been wanting to eat in the former British city for years for its Chinese traditions. Specifically for the dim sum and the famous open-air dai pai dong restaurants and hawker stalls, which have since declined in number due to various reasons, including a sanitisation movement enacted by local regulatory bodies (however not without protest). A formerly prominent feature of the city's culinary scene, we were lucky to have visited two of the remaining dai pai dong areas, one at the Temple Street Night Market (famous for seafood) on the Kowloon/mainland side and the other on Stanley Street on Hong Kong Island.

Stanley Street dai pai dong, January 2014

Every evening on the northern end of Stanley Street, a handful of dai pai dong come to life, lining the street with their foldaway/makeshift tables and plastic stools in preparation for an always bustling crowd of locals, expats, and tourists who know an opportunity for good food when they see it. English menus are available, however at our stall spoken English was tricky. So stringing some of my basic Mandarin together to exchange with their Cantonese (the local dialect), we ordered a braised eggplant and chilli hotpot, a grouper and tofu hotpot, and salt and pepper squid.

The aftermath of our meal after being too excited/hungry to take photos prior

While their was no fault on the squid, it was the hotpots that provided a blinding reminder about how good Chinese food can be. The eggplant melted in the mouth within its punchy, slightly sticky yet unctuous braising sauce; while the large meaty chunks of grouper were perfectly seasoned, moist and complemented by soft tofu which lightened the otherwise rich and salty dish. These with a bowl of simply steamed white rice - to ensure not an ounce of sauce was left unenjoyed - resulted in a complete, satisfying and enriching meal to finish off a night of drinking craft beers.

Exterior of Yat Lok restaurant, 34-38 Stanley Street, Central

Down the road was the only eatery we visited twice during our three day stay in Hong Kong: Yat Lok restaurant. Their specialty is roast goose, and special it is. Not unlike the more common roast duck, their amazingness arises from ultra crispy skin, given life by a combination of seasonings that I'm not privy to, and succulent, tender, equally-seasoned meat. On the first visit, I ordered roast goose on rice, allowing the meat to sing for itself.

Interior

Roast goose (below), Barbecue roast pork (above) and Chinese greens with oyster sauce

5-Spice Beef and Carrot Dumplings

I've been craving dumplings. A few days ago I tried making pierogi, the Polish version, which I filled with a potato, bacon, kale and onion mix pepped up by some toasted cumin and fennel seeds. I wasn't entirely happy with how the dough came out (I'll try this recipe next time) but the overall result was still pretty delicious.

Today, I made Chinese-style dumplings. As I'm currently out of range from an Asian grocer, I thought I'd try my hand at making the wrappers from scratch. I found this recipe and was stoked with how easy it was to make. For my first attempt, they turned out okay but I'll need to work on rolling them out. They say to never blame your tools but on this occasion, I regret using my ridged vintage chappati rolling pin. It's important to roll these out right and the ridges didn't allow me to roll the edges out thinly so that when pressed together, the dumpling wrapper isn't too thick.

I'm still pleased with how they came out though, especially the filling, but I'll be giving the homemade dumplings wrappers another attempt soon.

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5-spice Beef and Carrot Dumplings makes 36 with above dumpling wrapper recipe

If you're not fussed about making the dumpling wrappers from scratch, visit your local Asian supermarket and find the pre-made jiao zi dumpling wrappers in the freezer. You may be faced with two types/shapes: circular or square. I prefer the circular ones as the square wrappers are actually for wontons and are made with egg (instead of just flour and water). They would work fine, but the square shape creates 'excess' pastry ideal for deep-fried wontons, for the extra crispiness, or in soup, for aesthetics and the egg noodle-like texture.

Fresh/defrosted pre-made dumpling wrappers

Filling
300 g quality beef mince
1 medium sized carrot, grated
1 tsp five spice powder
1 Tbsp ginger, finely chopped or grated
1 clove garlic, finely chopped or minced
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1 dried Thai bird's eye chilli, crushed/chopped including seeds (or 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes)
1 green onion/scallion, sliced finely from tip to root
1 tsp sesame oil (optional)
1 Tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

Searching for Dumplings

I call a lot of things my 'favourite food' but there is something so perfect about a neatly formed parcel of meat (with sometimes a little vege) embedded with flavour, wrapped in dough and able to be captured in one concise mouthful.  Unlike the Italian ravioli, the Chinese dumpling is versatile in the different ways it can be cooked.  Boiled, steamed or pan-fried, it gives a myriad of sensual possibilities: from the flavour combinations, different seal-and-crimping methods (creating thinner and thicker parts within the join) to the texture which comes from the cooking technique.  (The Japanese gyoza is based on the pan-fried dumpling which, also known as 'pot-stickers', gain a chewy crust at their base while their tops are steamed - soft, with bite).

Google image search for "jiao zi"

Making and/or eating dumplings (or jiao zi, 餃子) is a long-loved tradition of mine for celebrating Chinese New Year.  Especially after moving out of home, I feel like I have to make a batch to share with friends every year, as if it was out of superstition.  Usually I stick to traditional Chinese flavours like minced pork with mushroom, garlic, chives, spring onion, soy sauce, sesame oil and some oyster sauce; or sometimes I'll add coriander, chilli, finely grated carrot and/or change the meat to minced lamb for a more Nepalese/Western Chinese flavour profile.  On the odd occasion, I've experimented with outright Western flavours like chicken, cranberry and brie (not bad), with the thought that you can pretty much package any great combination of flavours into a dumpling skin.