What to cook for Lunar New Year
How to ring in the year of the dragon with food and fortune
In Chinese astrology, it’s believed that in the year of your zodiac sign, you offend Tai Sui, the God of Age, and therefore incur his wrath. Being that my year—the year of the dragon*—is incoming, my mom informs me, I’m prone to bad luck.
“That’s why I ask my sister went to temple to Tai Sui to pray for you,” she texts me. She also sends me a voice note that I interpret to mean that she threw the temple some cash to ward off my foretold misfortune. But I have the Mandarin comprehension of a first grader, so I could be completely misunderstanding the bribery aspect of temple-going.
*The Chinese zodiac rotates every twelve years: dragons were born in 2024, 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, etc.
Our Lunar New Year Dinner Menu
The upcoming Lunar New Year, which falls on February 10, is all about filling your belly abundantly and over-indexing on foods that have auspicious names/shapes/histories. (Also spending time with family. But we have none nearby, so I’m focusing on the culinary aspect.)
While I am not above bribing any and all gods, I’m also leaning into the lucky foods this Lunar New Year, because it’s fun, delectable, and why not give my index funds a divine chance at a favorable future?
I’ve recently been feeling an expansive homesickness for Asian food—so I’m looking forward to preparing our own feast next weekend. Here’s what’s on the menu for our Lunar New Year dinner:
Pork and cabbage dumplings / Kenji Lopez-Alt, Serious Eats: Dumplings resemble the boat-shaped gold ingots that were used as Chinese currency in the Ming dynasty, so naturally, to eat them is to become wealthy. This is the year I try my hand at homemade dumplings, something that’s always slightly intimidated me—but I trust Kenji to steer us in the right direction.
Longevity noodles / Woks of Life: A dish that connotes a long, healthy life, longevity noodles are a staple on the new year’s dinner table.
Often served during special occasions and Chinese banquets, these savory, sticky rice-coated meatballs are symbolic of togetherness and reunion—sure to be the lustrous little jewels of your New Year’s spread.
Steamed whole fish / Woks of Life: The Chinese word for fish (yu) is a homonym for the word for “abundance,” and so to achieve abundance year after year (nian nian you yu), we always steam two whole fish—stripe bass is a favorite, or branzino if we can’t find any stripe bass. My mom sends me a voice note every year reminding me not to eat all the fish, and so we obediently put a fish back into the refrigerator—a tradition that Mike remains unsure about but accepts as filially pious son-in-law duty.