Xin Nian Kuai Le!
Chinese New Year is about spending time with your family and friends and celebrating another year. And if you're a kid (which is defined as unmarried) then it's also about collecting some cold, hard, cash in a hong bao, little red envelopes that in recent years are adorned with not only gold embossed lotus flowers, but advertisements for HSBC bank and Cognac Hennessy. But it's not all about the money. It's also about eating. A lot. And if you spend it with Liana's family like I did, this entails comparing how much fried food you ate and whether you have the capacity to eat more, all while wearing red clothing.
This is my second year spending the holiday with Liana's family, my surrogate family here in NYC. These dishes are made by Liana's grandmother who moved to Chinatown many decades ago. Last year when I hadn't yet reintroduced animal into my diet, she graciously made vegetarian tang yuan using water instead of chicken broth, even though she said it was both impossible and absurd.
THIS IS tang yuan, a pasta-like ball made from rice flour and water, with shrimp, daikon radish, and homemade shrimp and fish balls. The fried crescent moons are gauk. The white gauk is savory with ground pork and shrimp while the sweet is stuffed with red beans and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Both are deep fried and both are really tasty. I had two savories and three sweets, a comparable amount to the rest of the clanswomen.
Chinese New Year is about spending time with your family and friends and celebrating another year. And if you're a kid (which is defined as unmarried) then it's also about collecting some cold, hard, cash in a hong bao, little red envelopes that in recent years are adorned with not only gold embossed lotus flowers, but advertisements for HSBC bank and Cognac Hennessy. But it's not all about the money. It's also about eating. A lot. And if you spend it with Liana's family like I did, this entails comparing how much fried food you ate and whether you have the capacity to eat more, all while wearing red clothing.
This is my second year spending the holiday with Liana's family, my surrogate family here in NYC. These dishes are made by Liana's grandmother who moved to Chinatown many decades ago. Last year when I hadn't yet reintroduced animal into my diet, she graciously made vegetarian tang yuan using water instead of chicken broth, even though she said it was both impossible and absurd.
THIS IS tang yuan, a pasta-like ball made from rice flour and water, with shrimp, daikon radish, and homemade shrimp and fish balls. The fried crescent moons are gauk. The white gauk is savory with ground pork and shrimp while the sweet is stuffed with red beans and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Both are deep fried and both are really tasty. I had two savories and three sweets, a comparable amount to the rest of the clanswomen.
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