Chinese Menu for Lunar New Year 2017; the year of the Rooster!

Chinese New Year fell on the weekend and after seeing a menu in the Taste BC magazine, I decided that I would do the recipes in this magazine.  

Our daughter had danced with the Chinese Phoenix Dances and with that came the festivities around Chinese New Year.  The Chinese dancers were always part of the program along with the Lion Dance. It was a very special time for the whole family!

This is the meal I prepared for Chinese New Year,  BBQ Pork, Long Life Noodles, BBQ Baby Back Ribs,  Snow Pea and Napa Slaw, Cantonese Roast Duck and Almond Milk Pudding

My Granddaughter dressed in traditional Korean Dress called a Hanbok.  The dresses are very intricate,  

The Jeogori is the top jacket that goes over the bottom skirt.

Showing the Sebae, the ritual bow done on Lunar New Year's. Respect shown to her grandparents. And guess what? Money is given to the kids.

Okay. Enough of this. Help me with my Hanbok!

The Chima is referred to the bottom or skirt that did have a sleeveless top to it.  The chima has a waist band that extends to form ties to wrap around the waist.  

CHINESE NEW YEAR MENU

SNOW PEA AND NAPA SLAW

CANTONESE ROAST DUCK

CHINESE BBQ PORK (CHA SIU)

CHINESE BBQ PORK




Long Life Noodles

ALMOND MILK PUDDING

Long Life Noodles for Chinese New Year

The Long Life Noodles that were prepared for Chinese New Year were certainly a hit and disappear quickly. This dish is served hot with the BBQ Pork. The name of this dish referred to Long Noodles = Long Life. 

BBQ Pork

The BBQ Pork recipe was a recipe given to me by a classmate who's Mom use to make for Sunday Dinners. It is easily done using Salt, Pepper and Hoisin Sauce. Hoisin is available in the Asian section in a Supermarket.  

Ingredients for the dressing of this salad

• 3T dark Soya Sauce
• 2T light Soya Sauce
• 2T Oyster Sauce
• 1/2 sugar

•  1 lb noodles
• Fresh ginger, minced
• Garlic clove, minced
• 1 Onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 lb BBQ Pork, thin julienned 
• 3 cups Bean Sprouts*
• Green onions, cut into 1 inch lengths 

Cook noodles in salty water. Drain.

In a skillet, saute minced ginger and minced garlic clove in oil.
Saute thinly sliced onion until soften then add thin julienned BBQ Pork. 
Add Bean sprout*, green onions and noodles. Add dressing, stir and heat thoroughly. 
Serve hot.

*In place of Bean Sprouts, as there is a danger of food borne illness, I left them out. 
I thought that Shiitake Mushroom would have been a great addition to this dish.  I had bought Fresh Snow Pea Shots for the recipe but used then in the salad instead!

Chinese BBQ Pork using an Authentic old recipe

I needed BBQ Pork for the LongLife Noodle recipe I was making for the Chinese New Year meal.  I decide to dig out an old recipe that was given to me as I needed to drive across the city to the Chinese Market to buy BBQ pork and traffic is always busy on a Friday afternoon. 

Slices of BBQ Pork

I was able to find a pork shoulder at Superstore and to my surprise when I opened the package the skin had been included, something I would have been most annoyed but not for this recipe.  Some of the recent recipes I have looked at are using any cut of pork, some as lean as the tenderloin. But the BBQ pork you can buy at the Asian Market is very fatty!

Making this BBQ pork recipe brought back memories of being included in the Sunday Family dinners with my classmate's family.  I remember family style eating with plates of Mahoney colored chicken wings, slices of BBQ Pork and shrimp.  Sadly, I do not remember much else.  My classmate Sheila would always say to her Mom laughingly to bring the soya sauce as I loved my Chinese food in a sauce.  Which was annoying as I really had tasted few Chinese dishes at that time! 

On one of the occasions, I did see what was called a Sea Cucumber boiling in a pot of water.  It looked like a cucumber, greenish grey with what looked like spikes all over it.   I was intrigued with this and wondered what dish it was for.  Not sure about this delicacy after reading the above link. 

The BBQ Pork at my friend's home was sliced thinly and served on Noodles. The pork slices were edged in a deep red color.

My classmate had neatly written our her Mom's recipe for me.  I have never made this recipe until now!

BBQ Pork Recipe

This recipe salts the pork and lets it rest for 2 hours, something I did not do.  The recent recipes for BBQ pork do not use the red food coloring, therefore you do not get that red edging around the meat.  

The pork was salted and peppered first

Hoisin sauce was brushed on to all sides of the meat. It was repeated a few times while cooking.

This piece of meat was slowly braised at 250 degrees, covered for 5 hours.  It was uncovered and brushed with Pomegranate molasses and placed under the broiler for a few minutes.   I was thrilled with the appearance of this and the tasters passed the test.

The pork was cute into small pieces for the noodle dish.

Long Life Noodles