Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year in America. Usually, Kenric and I take the lazy way out and eat at a Chinese restaurant after work. This year, I decided to make few things for dinner. We went to three Asian markets and two grocery stores for ingredients.
Gold Nuggets
The first item was supposed to be dumplings. The Chinese eat dumplings during the New Year because they are shaped like big gold nuggets. All I could find were wonton wrappers, so I made potstickers instead. They were filled with a combination of pork, shrimp, Napa cabbage and green onions. Kenric said it’s the tastiest of all my attempts.
He’s getting good at this!
Frying them in oil before pouring some chicken broth into the pan and covering it so that the fillings would be steam cooked thoroughly.
Lucky 13 dumplings. They’re more like potstickers.
Fish for “Abundance”
The second item was pan fried salmon. The Chinese eat fish during the New Year because in the Mandarin and Cantonese dialects (probably in other dialects too) fish is “yu”. Phonetically, abundance is also “yu”. So, eating fish will bring a year of abundance.
Eating fish for “abundance” in the upcoming year. After I removed the fish from the pan, I turned off the heat, added soy sauce and sugar and then poured it over the fish. It’s delicious. The crispy bits are actually fish that were stuck on the pan. Of course I had to scrape them off. They’re the best.
Buddha’s Delight
The third is a vegetarian dish of Napa cabbage, vermicelli, tofu and mushrooms; my take on the famous dish “Buddha’s Delight”. It is customary for Chinese, especially those who are Buddhist and Taoist, to not eat meat on the first day (and the 15th day) of the new year. In most households, this is just one of the many dishes served on New Year’s day and the long vermicelli noodles is a symbol of long life.
“Buddha’s Delight”. The first time I gave Kenric some of this, he threw it out along with my container because the sesame oil made him gag. ???
I told Grandma about the symbolisms and she found them interesting. When she finally gave up saying she was too full, I assured her that she had eaten enough of everything to guarantee longevity and a prosperous year filled with abundance. She looked Buddha delighted. Too bad Kenric’s Aunt and Uncle flew back to Sioux Falls yesterday.
I Decided to Reward Him
My version of Buddha’s Delight is something I love very much and made often when I lived alone years ago. The flavor of sesame oil is my favorite part. Most of you know Kenric and I worked for the same company. After he started coming over to my desk to say Hi way too many times with or without an excuse, I decided to reward him with my favorite dish. I gave him a container of it one Monday.
On the following Friday, I finally asked if he would like to thank me for the food. He said he couldn’t stand the smell of it, and every time he opened the container to throw the food out so that he could at least return the container to me, he gagged. So, he threw my container out with the food. He blushed and offered to replace the container. All these years, I ate dishes with sesame oil like I ate durian; on Wednesday nights when he was out playing Risk, in the backyard or far away from him. Tonight, he said my Buddha’s Delight was perfectly flavored.
“Even with sesame oil?!”
“You hid it well.” I did go really easy on the sesame oil.
May your Year of the Pig also be filled with prosperity, abundance, and most importantly, with good health and love.
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