Viet World Kitchen

Guide to Lucky Sweets for Lunar New Year

Feeling rushed to get something together for Lunar New Year? You’re not alone. It’s part of the fun and excitement of celebrating major holidays. On the other hand, come Sunday, you can slither into the Year of the Snake with a simple sweet and warm cup of tea. Sit down and contemplate the year to come.

Pick your lucky fruit(s). This holiday typically means lots of fruit displays. I keep it to a minimum with tangerines. This year, a friend shared a bag of mandarin oranges grown by her father in Fresno. Sweet as candy, they’re better than store bought! I’m thankful for my friend Diane’s generosity.

Many Viet people go all out for special Tet lucky fruit trays. You’re suppose to make a sculpture with 5 (lucky number!) types of fruit and set them on your ancestral altar.  We never had that when we were growing up because we focused on preparing traditional Viet foods. My parents, ardent Catholics, say their daily rosary in front of portraits of my grandparents. I figure that we’re covered year-round.

Why Vietnamese Tet is for Home Cooking

Every year, I look forward to the week leading up to the Lunar New Year – Tet Nguyen Dan, or just Tet, as we call it in Vietnamese. Why? For the simple reason that I take time off to make some of my favorite traditional Viet foods. Many of us rush around these days, barely catching our breaths to meet deadlines, only to face new ones. Multitasking, I’ve learned, is overrated.

When Tet comes along, I shut down and shut out the world for a few days. Tune out and focus on cleaning, cooking, and celebrating. Vietnamese Tet is a low-key, family-oriented holiday. It's homey by nature and people love it. Tet is like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day and Father's Day all wrapped up into one. Traditionally, people took off a month from work. Modern times don't allow for that and we all create our own new traditions. 

My Tet ritual starts at Asian grocery stores. I try not to brave the weekend crowds at Chinese and Vietnamese markets and instead go there on a weekday. That way, I get to look at all the crazy sweets and snacks that are for sale for new year. They’re usually well positioned near the market’s entrance so you can’t miss them.

Year of the Snake: Lucky Dumpling Party Tips

When it comes to Chinese astrological signs, I suck. While I know my own – I straddle the curious monkey and preening rooster who cooks well, I don’t take it all that seriously. Some people are dialing it in for the upcoming Year of the Black (or Water) Snake, which starts on February 10. By some accounts, it will be one of instability and extremities but will generate overall peace and prosperity. I feel like that is my life in the main.  

Through web searches, I found out that snakes are sexy, lucky, and wise, albeit inclined to a certain measure of laziness. Famous snakes include Pablo Picasso, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Onassi, and Brooke Shields. Snakes gets along well with roosters, oxes, horses, sheep, and dogs. If you’re a rat, tiger, rabbit, or dragon, you’ll be an okay friend of a snake. Monkeys and snakes tend to create too much drama. I’m kinda covered during 2013, I suppose.

This stuff is lots of yin-yang, good and bad, lighthearted fun. I read Chinese astrological signs like I read my daily horoscopes. Their ambiguity offers constant life lessons. If they were spot on, I’d head to Vegas during my “four-star” days.

That said, it’s always good to start a new year with a positive outlook. I make my plans for Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year) around the 3 C’s: cleaning, cooking, and celebrating. Since I am usually not with my family, I invite close friends over for a feast. More often than not, there are dumplings on the menu. I occasionally make an entire menu of dumplings and invite friends over to help out.

Meatless Monday Tet Menu

I am a low meat eater and wouldn't venture to be a complete vegetarian – though the Chinese New Year candy display at See’s (photo above) may convince me. In fact, tonight on the Tet Eve, I am cooking a crab and will use its meat for a cellophane noodle and crab dish tomorrow; the gin and creme de menthe on the rocks (a "Double Dragon") was the meatless part. I’m saying that I’m not going meatless for Tet tomorrow. 

However, my friend Simon Bao has been contemplating how he and his partner will celebrate the Year of the Dragon without any ingredients from legged or finned animals. Vietnamese Buddhists who adhere to a strict vegetarian diet will be enjoying a vegetarian Tet menu. During Tet, it’s not good to take the life of another being, according to tradition. (For other Tet dos and don’ts, see this 2011 post from the People’s Army Newspaper in Hanoi; you know that it has to be officially sanctioned.)

This evening, Simon sent this message to relay what they’ll be eating tomorrow. My comments are in [brackets.] One of the cool things in Simon’s menu is how he thinks about delivering the savory umami-ness in foods. That’s among the flavors that make us feel satisfied during a meal. Simon’s meatless Tet menu:

Lucky Chinese New Year Dumplings

When Lunar New Year comes around, I like to pile on the Asian symbols of good luck – especially when it comes to food. Traditional Vietnamese Tet foods have certain cultural symbols. Foods like banh chung sticky rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves echo the modesty and resourcefulness of Vietnamese cooks. There are just a handful of ingredients that go into that sensational preparation.

Whereas Viet Tet foods are humble, Chinese New Year foods are loaded with promises of fortune. Next week when we celebrate Lunar New Year on January 23 and 24, I’m planning a menu of Vietnamese Tet foods and Chinese New Year dumplings. I haven’t narrowed down which ones to make but here are some candidates:

Jiaozi dumplings – I love these hearty dumplings (a sample is pictured above) this time of the year. They are little bundles of joy. Their shape resemble gold ingots so eating lots of them during Chinese New Year is suppose to invite good fortune. The term jiaozi (“gee-OW zeh”) generically applies to a broad category of dumplings in the Chinese repertoire.

It’s a northern Chinese tradition for families to gather and made a ton of jiaozi dumplings. Some people roll out the dough into individual skins while others fill and cook the dumplings. The hot dumplings get tumbled in a mess of soy sauce, vinegar and chile oil for a great warming snack. The filling can be meaty or vegetarian. I suppose you could even make gluten-free dumplings too!

Poached dumplings (think ravioli) are most traditional but heck, it’s the Year of the Dragon and you’re free to go crazy. Panfry the dumplings into pot stickers or deep-fry them into crisp pockets of joy. Or steam them. You could even make Tibetan momos or Japanese pot stickers as riffs. The first chapter of Asian Dumplings offers a whole host of options. You could even make a filling on the fly.