Need advice for Chinese New Year party food
We are considering hosting a Chinese New Year open house-style party at our home this year, and I'm starting to think about the menu. The focus, besides Chinese, is food that can be prepared ahead of time as much as possible and still taste good. For instance, while I love pan fried dumplings, I don't want to be stuck behind the stove all day making new batches.
I definitely want to offer a couple of soups (probably egg drop or a hot/sour, and a wonton), but does anyone else have suggestions? TIA.
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So, I compromised on a kid-friendly, somewhat traditional menu, leaving many important CNY's items off the list for another time. I'm making the dried oysters-stir-fried-with-(among other things) Chinese sausage and veggies-served-on-a-lettuce leaf thing from Wisdom (she has a more elegant and succint name for it, which I can't remember), tea eggs, peanut soup from Wisdom, and I got a couple of roasted ducks from my Chinese market, we'll put those out for a serve-yourself Peking Duck/moo shoo kind of thing. Friends are bringing dumplings and citrus fruits. I just couldn't get it together to do LIon's Head, but I look forward to making it in the future. The party is tomorrow.....thanks to all for your suggestions and followup! Happy New Year........
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If you don't have it already, this party is a good excuse to buy Grace Young's "The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen", which has an entire section on New Year's foods. I strongly recommend this book. Many of the recipes can be made ahead of time, although I wouldn't make the Seasame Balls too far ahead (preferably the morning or afternoon of the party). It's also a good excuse to buy her other book "Breath of a Wok", which has a section with pictures of Amy Tan and her family making New Year's Dumplings (Jiao-zi). I myself will hopefully be lucky enough to be traveling to my wife's aunties for the yearly feast.
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chef chicklet
Jan 19, 2007 10:37 PM
Pork buns are a favorite
Onion pancakes
Or mushu pork and pancakes is nice too -
chowser
Jan 19, 2007 02:21 PM
Most chinese food can be prepped in advanced, but a lot of it needs to be cooked right before serving. When my in-laws do Chinese New Year dinners, it takes days of prep, and they're cooking up to the last minute. But it doesn't sound like you're looking for traditional Chinese new year food, so what about doing a jook bar? You can have a huge pot of jook w/ different toppings on the side (scallions, dried onions, dried fish/pork, chinese sausages, thousand year old eggs, etc.). Soy sauce pork is also really easy to do in advance and tastes great.
http://www.whats4eats.com/recipes/r_me_redpork.html
You can make tea eggs:
http://chinesefood.about.com/od/chinesenewyear/r/teaeggs.htm
As vegetables go, just have it prepped and it'll take no time to quickly stir fry just before serving. Spinach and garlic is fast and easy. Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce is also good:
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Thanks so much for the suggestions! Rockycat, I'd love your recipe for the rice cakes filled with bean paste, if you have it handy. Fleur, I'm not sure what Lion's Head is, but I'd like to learn more! If this party actually happens, I'll post back with the final menu.
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re: powella
http://www.newsobserver.com/cgi-bin/n...
That's the (excessively long) link to the recipe for the rice cakes with red bean paste. If the link doesn't work, it came from the Raleigh News & Observer. There's a link for recipes at the bottom of the page.
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For a great make ahead dish,, as part of a large multi course dinner, I always make Lion's Head. Chinese Sugar Bake Hunan Lamb is another long cooking fsvorite you can make in advance and reheat.
Chinese banquests traditionally have many cold dishes. Szechuan Hacked Chicken is delicious.
For dessert, I often make the Eight Precious Pudding, made with glutenous rice. Also Almond custard (like Jello) with a fresh fruit platter is a traditional Chinese American dessert.
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Rice cakes filled with bean paste are a good choice for dessert. They are traditionally steamed, but I understand that many first and second generation Chinese-Americans are going over to baking. I made some last year as a fun project with my then 3-year-old. We'll be doing it again this year.
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I always have dumplings (jiao zi) and mein for New Year. You can buy the dumplings from most Asian groceries or from some shops - Wang's in Somerville is supposed to have excellent choices. Instead of pan-frying them, boil them and serve them on platters. That's how they've always been served at the NY parties I've been to. You will need warming trays or something similar to keep them warm. Or boil batches every hour? It only takes minutes if your pot of water is hot.
I like to make big platters of lo mein as well. You can buy the noodles pre-made and cooked. Have the vegetables, meat etc. ready to cook. Before your guests arrive, get it into the wok, toss with noodles and sauce and put the platter into a warm oven. It will keep for at least an hour.
I usually buy roast meats to serve - duck, crispy skin pork, bbq pork. They're amazingly low in cost considering how good they are and most people really love the flavor. All these can be served at room temperature so there's no work for you.
I also do vegetables. I don't know any way around last minute cooking of most Chinese greens, so perhaps you can stir-fry and put out on warming trays? You could get pickled vegetables and arrange these on big plates with the roast meats.
Soup is a good idea. You can put this into a slow cooker to keep warm and guests can help themselves as they arrive. If you have more than one slow cooker, consider doing jook. It's easy and great comfort food.
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Alas, not terribly traditional this time, unless it also happens to be very easy to prepare. I do have access to some solid Asian markets here in the Boston area, so I can get ingredients. We will probably be serving lots of children in the preschool age range, which also should be kept in mind.
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