A Lunar New Year Menu That Goes Beyond Dumplings

There are a thousand different ways to celebrate the Lunar New Year, China’s biggest holiday (also called Spring Festival or chun jie). But a few of them are mandatory. You have to visit family and friends and honor your elders. You have to clean your house and clear any conflicts. You have to toast to health, happiness and good fortune. And you have to have at least one seemingly endless meal—ideally one that ends with fireworks.

As for what you actually eat during that meal...well, that depends. Traditions vary by region and province, and while there are many symbolic foods that have earned a place in tradition (such as dumplings), there aren’t many must-have dishes that apply nationwide.

In other words, everybody's menu for the Lunar New Year, which runs through February 19th, is different. This list of dishes—informed by my American childhood with a Cantonese mother and Shanghainese father, and a decade living in China’s north—is mine.

Chicken

Growing up in America, my mother’s Cantonese flavors overshadowed my father’s Shanghai traditions. My grandmother used a cleaver to hack White-Cut chicken, a dish that represents family and togetherness. The whole bird (including head and feet) is gently poached to preserve its pure flavors. Chinese prefer tuji (free-roaming chickens) and sanji (birds reared in the mountains) for their wild, distinct flavor. While many families simply serve a steamed chicken with some kind of dipping sauce, this classic Cantonese dish is served with scallion- and ginger-infused oil, spiked with white pepper. It’s often too subtle for westerners to notice and I’ve enjoyed versions with a tiny drizzle of soy sauce that give this requisite dish a slightly bolder flavor.

White-Cut Chicken

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Whole fish

Wherever there are oceans and rivers, a whole fish is served, almost always steamed with ginger and scallion. I love the simple heady flavors that are elevated thanks to an unusual technique of pouring sizzling-hot oil over fresh aromatics on top of the fish just after steaming and right before serving. The result is a simple dish that is aromatic of scallion and cilantro.

Whole Black Bass with Ginger and Scallions

Soup

My mother hand-wrapped wontons for soup. Sometimes, if she had extra broth, she simmered soft cubes of wintermelon with slivers of salty-smokey Virginia ham—every Chinese-American housewife’s substitute for China’s forbidden Jinhua or Xuanwei hams. The lingering scent of aged, cured pork in a chicken broth is another example of Canton’s excellence in simple cuisine.

Hot pot

Years later, my stepmother eased her workload with what became our traditional family meal at home for years: huo guo, or hot pot, a communal meal where a colorful array of raw food, including seafood, thinly sliced chicken, pork, beef, cubes of tofu, cellophane noodles, cabbage, and verdant spinach is presented and cooked in a simmering broth.

Buddha’s Delight

A vegetarian dish called jai in Cantonese or zhai in Mandarin is mandatory in the south where Buddhism prevails. The eighth day of the Lunar New Year, known as laba, is also a nod towards Buddhism. On this day, a sweet congee is commonly served with beans, rice, peanuts and dried fruit (although savory congees, like this chicken version, is also an option).

Dumplings

When I moved to Beijing, I’d never heard of the tradition of wrapping dumplings at midnight on the eve of the new year. I’ve since learned to master the unfamiliar practice of making doughy pork and cabbage dumplings, typical in the colder wheat-eating regions of Dongbei (Northeast China). I blend my family’s southern filling with thicker hand-rolled northern skins for my version of Chinese fusion.

Shrimp and Pork Pot Stickers

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Dessert

Living up north, I missed seeing nian gao, the sweet brown or white sticky rice cakes that are especially made during this time of year. The 15th and final day ends the celebration with the Lantern Festival, where temples light red lamps and everyone eats tangyuan, sticky rice dumplings filled with red beans, black sesame, peanuts and sometimes a rare savory version. Desserts are rare in China, but this Eight Treasure rice pudding is a welcome treat, with candied fruit, nuts and sticky rice.