If you’re anything like me, regular new years in Australia are boring. On a regular New Year’s Day, you wake up hungover. But on the lunar new year you wake up with money.
It’s not just the cold, hard cash that makes it important to the Chinese calendar. It is an opportunity to clear out your house (our version of a spring clean) of all the bad luck from the previous year and welcome the good fortune of the year to come. It’s a time to gather with your family, acknowledge your ancestors, and feast on auspicious food. Carrying on into the early hours of the morning with too much cognac while playing mahjong is optional.
Every lunar new year is marked by one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, and 2021 is the year of the ox. If you like hard work, honesty and being positive, this is your year. As these are the main attributes of the ox, it is believed that these characteristics will manifest in all of us. Whether you put a lot of faith in the Chinese zodiac or not, it’s important to know which year it is, since that’s what you’re going to be decorating your home with as the host. That’s correct: this year is bovine themed.
Aside from placing a lot of nods to the ox all over your house, you’ll have to adhere to a strict list of dos and don’ts, as the lunar new year stirs up superstition. For example, you can’t wear black or white as they’re the colours of death. You can’t take medicine on the day of the lunar new year as it might set you up for poor health for the whole year. You can’t take out the trash on the New Year’s Eve as it’s symbolic of throwing out all the good luck you’ve been fostering. No congee for breakfast on New Year’s Day as it’s the breakfast of peasants and you’ll be poor for the year. You know what else makes you poor? Washing your hair on NYD. Andif your children cry, it’s bad luck for you until the next cycle.
Instead, wear red, decorate your house in red, give children money in red packets – it symbolises luck and prosperity.
The food you serve is the most important part of the entire ritual and is representative of harmony, good fortune and (you guessed it) prosperity.
Every family has their preferred dishes during the reunion feast, but there are a set of non-negotiables when it comes to the new year dinner. The centrepiece must be a whole chicken and fish, supplemented by dumplings, noodles, nian gao (glutinous rice cake) and citrus. If you’ve ever attended a reunion dinner you also know it is all about abundance and if you don’t plan ahead it’s a lot of hard work.
Here’s how to break down your time so you don’t pull all your hair out before the nian gao hits the table.
Five days out
Place your orders with the fishmonger (it must be a whole fish), the butcher and your local Cantonese barbecue shop. Not only do you want the best quality meat, but you want something large enough to provide leftovers.
If you’re not ambitious enough to tackle a celebration dish like Adam Liaw’s eight treasure duck, I’d forgo ordering a raw duck and go straight to your barbecue shop. Add some sui yuk (crispy pork) and soy sauce chicken to your order because more is more and no one likes to hear an aunty complain about your stinginess.
Four days out
Today is the day you jostle about at a few Asian grocers to grab your dried seafoods (conpoy, shrimp, oysters), dried mushrooms, Chinese sausage, black moss, dumpling wrappers and choice of noodles. It is traditional to make longevity noodles for the reunion dinner because you want to wish everyone a long life. If you like to work particularly hard, you might want to also try your hand at a second noodle dish like Fuchsia Dunlop’s dan dan mian, or Rosheen Kaul’s creamy tofu noodles, because if you’ve ever been to any Chinese family gathering, you know that noodles are always the first to go.
Depending on how much work you want to do, you can always pick up your ingredients to make walnut cookies and nian gao, or just buy them pre-made. No one would frown on you for not making your own desserts. Embrace the short cut.
Three days out
Don’t forget to buy all your fresh ingredients and pick up your fresh protein today.
Remember Adam Liaw’s eight treasure duck you told yourself you were making? Start soaking all the dried goods. If you’ve taken the short cut and ordered a roast duck from the chop shop, I would recommend making ho see fat choy (which is said to bring good luck and wealth) so you can deliver on all that auspiciousness. I like to soak all my dried seafood in cold water the night before cooking to gently loosen any dirt.
Two days out
Today’s going to be the biggest day of cooking. If preparing a whole chicken, do it today. Let the flavours meld and the collagen settle overnight, present the whole bird at dinner, and then cut it after everyone has been seated. Hainanese chicken (prepare only the chicken portion of this recipe up until the slicing) and soy sauce chicken is traditional. The whole bird represents unity of family. Extra points if you manage to get a chicken with its head and feet attached.
You don’t need to fold the dumplings today but make the filling to make your life easier. Here are a couple of recipes.
Cook off the ho see fat choy up until the final stages. Let the flavours meld overnight so when you reheat the dish to serve it will taste like you’ve spent all week on it. You can also make the eight treasure duck up until the final steam today. Just finish off cooking it before your guests arrive tomorrow.
For all the pork lovers, it’s time to cook the dongbo pork. Just like the ho see fat choy, it always tastes better the next day.
Lunar new year’s eve
Congratulations! You’ve made it.
Today’s for finishing off dishes, steaming your fish, folding dumplings with your family (a bonding activity which brings the family together while you shape your edible ingots), cooking your rice, putting baskets of citrus all over your home and giving away red packets filled with money to all the unmarried people younger than you in your family.
Eat, drink and treat yourself to a sleep in.
This article was amended on 09 February 2021 to include the author’s location, Australia, in the opening sentence. In Australia small household gatherings are permitted under current Covid-19 restrictions.
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