Celebrating The Chinese New Year With Your Own Unique Dinner
Even though the Chinese New Year takes place in February, it doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate. By celebrating, I don’t mean ordering Chinese cuisine for the whole family. Instead, why not try creating your own authentic Chinese New Year dinner?
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With the reunion dinner held on the New Years Eve of the East Asian holiday, members of the family (no matter how far they lived away) would get together to celebrate. The venue will usually be in or near the home of the oldest member of the family.
The dinner itself primarily consisted of chicken and fish. However, the fish wasn’t eaten completely as the rest was stored overnight because of the old saying “may there be surpluses every year”.
Aside from meat, the meal consisted of many other delicious dishes such as: Jiaozi dumplings, mandarin oranges, turnip cakes, taro cakes, melon seeds and dried fruit candy.
Now most of us who don’t know Chinese culture that well won’t be able to make a 100 per cent authentic dinner. But there are simple and scrumptious dishes that can be used to our advantage.
For the New Years Eve dinner, there were many other dishes that we’re made from rice, salad greens and steamed vegetables.
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With some help from the stove, you can easily prepare and cook vegetables and rice to accompany the main course. To add a modern touch, you can also prepare a delicious green salad full of any vegetable or fruit you desire.
If you want to try making dumplings, then use the simple recipe below that will help make your dinner more authentic and also give you some more flair when it comes to cooking.
Dumplings can pretty much go with any kind of sauce you like, but they taste best when served with the juices from fish or chicken.
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To make your dinner even tastier and more authentic, a simple turnip cake recipe will work. The following recipe below uses ingredients such as dried Chinese shrimp and Cantonese sausages to create a unique and scrumptious flavour.
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With the added knowledge of how to make turnip cakes, you can now impress your family and friends at dinner with this delicious dish.
Also, don’t get stuck on dessert or what to drink with your meal, because there is a simple solution: be simple. Handful of small mint candies will do for dessert while a nice sophisticated glass of wine is the perfect accompaniment for your meal.
It might not look as authentic as the meals enjoyed in East Asia on New Years Eve, but your creation will be pretty close.
Not only do you learn more about Chinese heritage, but you also get to evolve your cooking skills. The main point is, it’s not how the dinner looks, its how it tastes!
Have a happy Chinese New Year!
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Steamed Chicken and Vegetables With Wine Sauce
http://www.recipeland.com/recipe/22541/
Chinese Steamed Fish
http://www.recipeland.com/recipe/48884/
Five-Cup Fruit Salad
http://www.recipeland.com/recipe/9142/
Drop Dumplings
http://www.recipeland.com/recipe/39164/
Steamed Turnip Cake
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