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Asian Recipes

5 CNY Reunion Recipes with Lucky Ingredients

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Asian Recipes

5 CNY Reunion Recipes with Lucky Ingredients

Level up your Chinese New Year feast with these impressive recipes filled with wonderful, familiar flavours and “good luck” ingredients

January 21, 2020
CNY Reunion Recipes with Lucky Ingredients like black moss, duck, fish and peanuts

To keep Chinese New Year reunion dinners fun and interesting, why not add lucky ingredients? (These would also make wonderful conversation topics if you run out of topics with relatives you last saw over CNY 2019.) Featuring auspicious ingredients, we have picked five CNY-worthy recipes from Australia-based, Singapore chef and author Pamelia Chia’s cookbook, Wet Market To Table, for your cooking and feasting pleasure.

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About the chef-author: Before she left for Australia, chef Pamelia Chia, affectionately known as Ah Pam, who used to helm the curry and charcoal grill sections in the Michelin-starred Peranakan restaurant, Candlenut, recently launched Wet Market To Table, her “love song to the markets”, whereas a child, she used to accompany her mother, and as an adult chef, where she finds joy as she admires the produce and becomes immersed in the stories of the vendors.

Chef and author Pamelia Chia with her book, Wet Market To Table / Photo: Epigram Books

As a child, Pamelia Chia dreaded the Chinese New Year. She shares, “I used to dislike Chinese New Year when I was younger because I considered it an excruciating frenzy of dressing meticulously and socialising with people just for propriety’s sake.”

However, being away in Melbourne, the 28-year-old now works part-time in Ima Café as she writes her next book, has changed her views. “Having lived overseas for close to two years, I view it from a different lens now. It is such a blessing to have a holiday where the whole family gathers for a meal and catch up with one another.

Wet Market To Table by Pamelia Chia
Wet Market To Table / Photo: Epigram Books

“I celebrated by having a mediocre, overpriced meal at a Chinese restaurant. While back in Singapore, my family and friends were having amazing celebratory feasts. It made me think about how in Chinese culture, one communicates love and kinship through food more than words or physical affection.”

Pamelia understands that preparing a meal for the whole family can be daunting, and shares a few tips to stay in control when preparing your reunion recipes:

CNY Cooking: Tips to Stay in Control

* Don’t veer too far from tradition. “Definitely keep your menu Chinese or CNY-appropriate. There are some recipes in the book that are particularly festive, such as the boneless stuffed chicken, salt-baked chicken with sand ginger sauce, Cantonese roast duck, and prosperity claypot.”

 * Serve dishes you feel confident about. Pamelia shares, “If you can, I would recommend either practising before the CNY meal or falling back on the reunion recipes in your repertoire.”

* Aim for high impact, low effort. “When preparing a multi-course meal, it is crucial to not be too ambitious with your [reunion recipes]. Keep to a maximum of one labour-intensive dish, and keep the rest easy. A high-impact, low-input dish from the book is the clams with laksa leaves. It is one of the quickest yet most gratifying recipes in the book!”.

* If you are really time-pressed, go with steamboat! “All you have to do is cook rice (or skip the rice and have some quick-cooking noodles instead), whip up some dipping sauces and do light preparation on the meat and vegetables. The soup base for the Teochew fish soup in the book is a great one for this. ”  

Wet Market To Table (published by Epigram), at $44.90, is available at leading bookstores and at shop.epigrambooks.sg.

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https://www.womensweekly.com.sg/gallery/food/asian-recipes/cny-chinese-new-year-reunion-recipes-auspicious-ingredients/
5 CNY Reunion Recipes with Lucky Ingredients
Fragrant Stir-Fried Clams With Laksa Leaves
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Lucky ingredient: Clams. They are said to bring blessings to the household.

Stir-fried with laksa leaves, pork fat, dish sauce and Shaoxing wine, these clams are so tantalising you would want to make them outside of Chinese New Year.

Get The Recipe

Epigram Books
Teochew Fish Soup With Deep-Fried Taro
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Lucky ingredient: Fish. Eating fish is said to increase prosperity.

This aromatic fish soup is savoury to taste and comes with the fragrance and sourness of plums and tomatoes. Have it in a bountiful Chinese New Year feast, or just with rice, and it will still taste amazing.

Get The Recipe

Read Next

8 Fish Dishes For A Prosperous Nian Nian You Yu This CNY

25 Tasty Fish Recipes For Family Dinners

Epigram Books
Cantonese Roast Duck
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Lucky ingredient: Duck. This is usually served complete with head, feet and tail to symbolise completeness. And completeness in areas like wealth, health and family.

A good roast duck on the table can set the mood for Chinese New Year, especially after learning it is homemade. Representing a healthy and prosperous year ahead, learn how to prepare this Cantonese Roast Duck packed with hours’ worth of flavour.

Get the Recipe

Read Next

Coloured Wraps With Duck And Persimmon Chutney

Duck Pancakes

Duck And Lychee Salad

Epigram Books
Rojak Ice Cream
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Lucky ingredient: Peanut. Consuming peanuts is said to attract good fortune.

Be it a mid-afternoon or a post-dinner dessert, serve up this unique and delightful ice cream to surprise friends and family, especially during this Chinese New Year! This interesting recipe is a blend of peanut butter, tamarind pulp, ginger flowers, cucumbers and chilli padi for authentic rojak flavours.

Get the recipe

Read Next

Crispy Salted Caramel Peanut Puff

Hawker-Style Peanut Pancake (Min Chiang Kueh)

5 Yummy & Creative Food Hacks With Skippy Peanut Butter

Epigram Books
Prosperity Claypot (Pen Cai)
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Lucky ingredient: Fatt Choy (black moss). The two syllables, fatt choy, sound the same as a Cantonese saying that means, “struck it rich”, and so is now homonym for good fortune.

One of the must-haves alongside yu sheng and steamed fish at every Chinese New Year dinner is pen cai. Such dishes can be expensive when ordered at restaurants, and while the exquisite taste does make up for the money, cooking it on your own is entirely possible and cost efficient.

Get the recipe

Read Next

Fatt Choy Mushroom with Broccoli

Deluxe Hakka Fortune Pot (Pen Cai)

5 Indulgent Pen Cai Treasure Pots To Order For This Year's Reunion Dinner

Epigram Books
  • TAGS:
  • auspicious ingredients
  • Chinese cuisine
  • chinese new year
  • clams
  • CNY 2020
  • fish soup
  • pen cai
  • reunion recipes
  • roast duck
  • rojak
  • Wet Market To Table
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