Auspicious Chinese New Year Dishes

Except for breakfast, Eni asked me what to prepare for lunch and for dinner everyday during the Chinese New Year holidays. It is challenging to feed six adults with traditional Chinese New Year dishes for a week (my father-in-law lives on liquid preparation, Eni is Muslim). It's tempting and exciting to invent new year dishes with ingredients from the vegetable garden in the front yard.

The first day of the first month of year of dragon falls on Monday, January 23rd. Three weeks before the Chinese New Year, I mailordered three dishes from 7-11, including the stewed pork knuckles, steamed glutinous rice, lamb chop pot. I ate them all before the Chinese New Year. I didn't place another order to bring home for the new year gathering, because I know I can make better new year dishes.

On New Year's Eve, supper is a feast with families. As the chef of the house, I followed the tradition to make a huge communal hot pot surrounded with silver coins to signify the family reunion. We have raw meat (chicken, beef), seafood (squib and sea cucumber), vegetables (crown daisy from the garden) for the hot pot. We had fish (the surplus of the year). We had two kinds of fried rice cakes (to advance toward higher positions and prosperity step by step).

For the third CNY Eni stayed with us, I finally learned how to make her favorite Indonesian dish, sambal goreng teri (Spicy salted anchovy with peanuts and bean curds). Eni gave me a big jar of sambal goreng teri to bring home to share with my friends at Spring Wine Parties in Taipei.