Chinese New Year Dishes Recipes

An Easy Guide to Make A Hong Kong / Southern Chinese New Year Feast

Chinese New Year dishes recipes focus on Hong Kong / southern Chinese foods served during Chinese Spring Festival.  With step-by-step full color illustrations in every recipe, a feast makes easy to feed an army.  

These recipes come with a lot of fun insider information in story format so that you have all the know-how to make a perfect feast.  All the tales you learned from this book will bring tons of joy in your conversation on the dining table.  Many important greetings and phrases are also put into traditional Chinese writings for you with Cantonese  pronunciation.   You are going to be super excited to share them all with everyone you know.

What is Chinese New Year?

Chinese New Year 農曆新年 is also called Spring Festival 春節. It is a big festival that every Chinese celebrates no matter where he/she lives and how old/young he/she is.

However, little do the outsiders know that Chinese coming from different regions celebrate this festival very differently. Food is one of many among them all.

When is Chinese New Year?

This is a common and logical question for everyone, including Chinese. Chinese New Year officially starts on the first day of the first month on the lunar calendar.

However, on our regular calendar, it can be between January to March. In short, it is different every year. That explains why even a Chinese lives in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Asian countries always wants to know when Chinese New Year is going to be that year.

To find out when it is if you don't have a lunar calendar with you at home, I highly recommend an internet search by typing in these keywords "Chinese New Year dates". The search engine will give you what you are looking for.

In fact, Chinese people start getting ready for the Spring Festival at least 1-2 weeks before the official start of the festival.

Regional Differences of Chinese New Year Dishes Recipes

In northern China, dumplings (aka pot stickers) are commonly served during the Spring Festival. In fact, these dumplings serve at any time, any occasions, just like Chinese daily consumption of steamed white rice.

On the other hand, southern China has been under the influence of the West for a few hundred years. Some regions were colonies for over a century, like Hong Kong and Macau. Therefore, seeing some western dishes on the dining table together with some traditional Chinese ones happens very often, even during Chinese New Year. One perfect example is red/white wine, NOT any Chinese wine, and steaks served in family style.

Why Southern Chinese Style Chinese New Year Dishes Recipes?

I was born and raised in Hong Kong 29 years before moving to the States. So, I have been exposed to the southern Chinese way of Lunar New Year celebration. Historically, southern China has been under heavy influence from the West. With Cantonese as a popular dialect in the area, it makes Chinese New Year food culture even more interesting.

If you still don’t know or have doubt about the southern Chinese or Cantonese customs I am talking about here, let me call out some popular dishes that you may have ordered in your local Chinese restaurants in the past. Dishes in that category are dim sum, sweet and sour pork, wontons, spring rolls, roast pork (aka "Char Siu") and many others. They all originated from southern China.

Still not quite sure? If I call out these superstar names, you will be able to connect the dots. They are Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh. The first 2 came from Hong Kong. The last one came from Southeast Asia. They all started their career in the Cantonese pop culture. And their fame started from Hong Kong entertainment industry.

Since plenty of Chinese restaurants dishes in the West were under the influence of the Cantonese food culture, without any insider explanation, you may just go with the flow. When it comes to festival as big as Chinese New Year, the worst you want to see or experience is to be misled by some false information.

So, I am going to share with you the Hong Kong style Chinese New Year celebration, not only just food, but also the related customs in this ebook. So that you can serve your Chinese food with love and confidence. If you have Chinese guest(s), no problem. They are going be amazed of the knowledge you know about Chinese food.

A Blessing or A Curse? Number of Dishes Matters

When my family dine out with my late grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and/or other extended families, we count how many people all together. Then, we will decide how many dishes to order before looking into the menu.

After placing the order with the wait staff, we ask him/her to confirm the number of dishes we ordered. We want to make sure that the number aligns with what we planned earlier. Sometimes, it would be the wait staff reminding us the number of dishes we ordered. As you can see, this has always been the first thing coming into everybody’s mind. No question asked.

So, why is it so important? Is it because of the money and everybody needs to dine within a budget? In fact, the number of dishes matters so much because each number means something. It can mean a good wish for everyone on the same table or a "curse". You want to get it right. Or, you would feel like leaving a hole in your heart. In other words, figuring out the number of dishes you are going to serve before continuing the rest of the planning and cooking when you are the host. Then, this will guarantee everyone sitting on your dining table is blessed with luck and prosperity.

In this ebook, from page 7-13, you are going to learn what each number (in both Chinese and English) means and why families will only go by certain numbers. Sounds boring? No way! You will find them super interesting and fun to learn. BTW, don't be so subtle. When you serve this dinner, make sure to share with everyone about the number of dishes on the table. This will help them to understand and feel blessed of your careful thorough planning and thoughtfulness.

Can you Improvise?

I know you are busy. Making a Chinese New Year feast may stress you out. I can guarantee you that there will be tips in this ebook, on page 14-21, to make your life easier.

Just like I said earlier, southern Chinese and Cantonese don’t mind to have some other dishes in the mix of the traditional ones. I will show you the way to share with your guests that your adaptations are still related to the Chinese New Year customs. All these tips will make available for you. So, when it’s time to bring out these tricks, you are ready because, the most important of all, you want to enjoy a delicious feast of Chinese New Year dishes recipes with friends and families.

How Each Ingredient Means Some Kind of Best Wishes?

You have something else in the pantry or the fridge. So, you decided to replace an ingredient listed on the recipe with whatever you have on hand. Does that sound familiar to you? Yes, I do that a lot, too.

But hold your horses! Each ingredient represents something great during the Spring Festival because of its form and/or shape. Chinese care a lot about the name, shape and pairing of the dishes and each ingredient. They believe that each will bring them good luck for the rest of the year. As a result, there are some big no-no that you must stay away at all cost.

Page 22-26 will tell you all ingredients you must stay away before any planning begins. Because you want to guarantee a dinner filled with blessing, happiness, health and luck.

What Are All the Condiments and Special Chinese Seasonings?

As much as I love all Chinese condiments and seasonings, a bottle here and a jar there can add up a significant amount.

So, this ebook will guide you for limiting to those that you always use in the future. This will prevent you from spending a ton of money upfront for buying every Chinese condiment you can think of. And as you feel more comfortable and want to expand your Chinese pantry, you can do so, too. It is all listed in the chapter of "Setting Up Your Chinese Pantry" from page 27-31.

Great for All Special Occasions

The beauty of these Chinese recipes can be served separately for any Chinese dinner. All the tips shared in this ebook can be applied to other special occasions. I will point them out to you as we move along in the book.

Then, you can enjoy all these delicious and lucky Chinese New Year dishes recipes throughout the year at any time, any occasion.

Knowing that dishes can be overwhelming after a big dinner. So the order of which dish cooks first and uses which pan/pot to cook has already been planned out for you as well in page 32-34.

Family and Children-Friendly Chinese New Year Dishes Recipes

As mentioned earlier, I was born and raised in Hong Kong and lived there for 29 years. After so many years being exposed to the Chinese cuisines, I had a difficult time to find the ingredients to make my favorite Chinese dishes after moving to the rural area in the United States.

As a result, I turned my experience of overcoming these challenges as new knowledge to share with my readers. Therefore, I promise that all ingredients in this e-cookbook are easily found in local grocery stores.

Don’t worry! If you are interested in those brands that I use and highly recommend, there is a list for you as well. You can check them out and buy for future use. Many of them can be ordered online as well. Choices are yours.

Also, some authentic Chinese recipes were tried by my American extended families. They were not the big fan of certain texture. So, I made some twists on those dishes to adapt the western expectations. Every recipe in this book has full color step-by-step illustrations to guide you.

All in all, you will learn all the dos and don’ts. You will be also amused what each ingredient means to a Cantonese or a southern Chinese. This ebook is going to be very entertaining. For sure, you can use all the knowledge you learned to break the ice during the Chinese New Year feast. So buy it now so that you can download it instantly. Let's get cooking.

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