Chinese New Year Rice Recipes

NEW YEAR'S FRIED RICE

Steps:

• Cook and stir bacon in a wok or large skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 10 minutes. Remove bacon and leave drippings in wok. Cook and stir red bell pepper, peas, and green onion in the hot droppings for 1 minute.
• Pour egg into wok with vegetables and toss lightly in the bacon drippings to scramble, about 2 minutes. Mix bacon and cooked rice into vegetables and egg, stirring to break apart any clumps of rice. Drizzle rice with soy sauce and cook until heated through, stirring often, about 2 minutes. Serve immediately.

CHINESE NEW YEAR SWEET RICE CAKE (NIAN GAO)

Steps:

• Prepare two 8-inch round baking pans by brushing the insides with vegetable oil.
• Add 2 cups of water and the ginger to a medium-sized pot, bring it a boil, then let it simmer for 10 minutes over low to medium heat with the lid covered. Turn off the heat, and stir in the brown sugar and allspice until the sugar is dissolved completely. Remove the ginger slices. Now add 1 1/2 cups of cold water to cool down the mixture so its warm, not hot.
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the two kinds of flours together and then slowly add in the sugar water mixture. Stir thoroughly until the batter is smooth (without any lumps). Now stir in the vanilla extract, molasses, orange zest, and 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil until thoroughly combined. The resulting batter should have a consistency similar to condensed milk. If the batter is too thick, add a bit more water a couple tablespoons at a time until the desired consistency is reached.
• Pour the batter evenly into two foil pans. Gently tap the pans against your countertop to get rid of air bubbles. Top each pan with three decorative dates in the center, if using. Put both pans in a double-decker bamboo steamer and steam for about 1 hour on high heat (the water should be boiling, but should NOT be bubbling high enough to touch the foil pans). You might need to add water into the steamer midway to avoid having the water dry up and burn your bamboo steamers.
• After 1 hour, poke a toothpick into the rice cake. It's done if the toothpick comes out clean--just like a regular cake! Regarding steaming techniques, for this recipe and in general, it doesn't matter what type of vessel you use. The core goal here is to use steam to cook the food, which means it's important that the steam doesn't escape.
• For example, if you use bamboo steamer, you will also need a pot that fits the bamboo steamer perfectly so there is no visible steam escaping. If you don't have a pot that fits the bamboo steamer, you will need to put the bamboo steamer inside a much larger pot with a lid and set the bamboo steamer on a rack above the water. Whatever you decide to use, with the correct set up, you should not see steam escaping!

CHINESE NEW YEAR RICE

Steps:

• Marinate chicken in a drizzle of soy sauce and sprinkle with lemon pepper and garlic salt.
• Heat oil in a wok and cook chicken until lightly browned. Remove from wok.
• Stir fry broccoli in oil, garlic, and a drizzle of soy sauce. Remove from wok.
• Stir fry carrots in oil, garlic, and a drizzle of soy sauce.
• Return chicken and broccoli to wok and add rice.
• Add 3 tbsp of soy sauce and pepper and mix until rice is thoroughly coated and is a light brown.
• Add additional soy sauce to taste.

50 CHINESE NEW YEAR RECIPES

Steps:

• . You can prepare some of these Chinese New Year recipes in advance. Some can stored in an airtight container for a few days in the refrigerator, and some can even be frozen, according to recipe directions.
• . Once you have decided on the dishes to serve, prepare as much as you can in advance, whether that is chopping ingredients or prepping the dish and storing in the refrigerator until ready for the oven. Any little bit that you can prepare in advance will make things much less stressful on the day.
• Take out the fancy dinnerware, flatware, glasses, placemats, and napkins and set the table the night before. It's one less thing to worry about on Chinese New Year.

CHINESE NEW YEAR RICE

Steps:

• Heat oil in a large skillet or wok over medium high heat.
• Add chicken.
• Cook and stir until lightly browned.
• Add remaining ingredients.
• Cook and stir about 10 minutes.
• Serve.