By Leslie Brenner
In her beautiful 2020 book, My Shanghai, Betty Liu has a lovely page about Lunar New Year. In Chinese households on New Year’s Eve, she explains, “guests are welcomed with cups of tea and fresh fruit,” and then there’s a parade of foods that in one way or another symbolize prosperity: whole fish, egg dumplings, tatsoi and sticky rice cakes among them.
Tuesday, February 1 marks the start of the Year of the Tiger, and in Chinese and the other Asian cultures that celebrate the holiday (including Vietnamese, Korean, Tibetan and Mongolian communities), the celebrations last about 15 days — from the new moon to the full moon.
One of my culinary adventurist dreams is to be invited, one day, to celebrate Lunar New Year’s Eve in the home of a Chinese or Chinese-American family. Alas, this year it will be but a dream once again. Given that we’re back to keeping to ourselves at home for dining lately, I think we’ll mark the occasion of Lunar New Year’s Eve by cooking something from Liu’s book — which I’ve only scratched the surface of.
So far, so great. The dish pictured above — Shanghai-style red-braised pork belly — has no specific symbolic connection to the holiday (that I know of!), but it is included in one of the Chinese New Years menus at The Woks of Life, one of my favorite cooking websites. And given that the holiday lasts a couple weeks, the wintry dish, which simmers for at least three hours (filling your kitchen with gorgeous aromas!) should be perfect for one of those dinners.
In her headnote, Liu calls the dish“perhaps my favorite recipe in this entire book,” mentioning that it’s the dish that best represents Shanghai cuisine, so I had to try it as soon as I got my hands on the book last winter, just after it was published. It’s a winner — rich, tender, deeply flavorful and very soulful. I love that it’s her mom’s recipe.
One you get all the meat browned and braising, the dish simmers for at least three hours, which means if you work at home, you might even be able to manage it on a work day.
What to serve with the red-braised pork?
Certainly the dish could be part of a big feast, but it’s so rich and satisfying that it’s also wonderful with just white rice (its traditional accompaniment), and a simple stir-fried green, such as baby bok choy.
As a student of Chinese cooking, I’m always interested to see how Chinese cookbook authors and other cooks I admire approach a basic Chinese greens stir-fry — a versatile dish I can’t get enough of at home, and one that’s a fixture on Chinese tables.
I love Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe for Baby Bok Choy with Shiitakes, from Every Grain of Rice. But with the red-braised pork belly, I wanted something even more basic, without the umami-richness of shiitakes. Happily, I found it in My Shanghai.
Liu’s recipe for a Basic Winter Greens Stir-Fry calls for baby bok choy, but regular bok choy, choy sum or Chinese water spinach take to it well, too. Best of all, there’s a valuable cooking lesson in Liu’s recipe, so this is a great greens recipe to try if, like me, you consider yourself a student of the genre.
Flavor of a thousand tangerines
And finally, here’s a dessert that’s not traditional, but works brilliantly following the braise: tangerine sorbet.
Tangerines are very much associated with the holiday. They’re at peak season now (the ones I’m getting have incredible flavor) and this recipe — adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, captures and somehow amplifies all that gorgeous flavor. It’s an amazing (and easily achieveable!) mood-lifter at a moment that more than a few of us might need one.
RECIPE: Betty Liu’s Mom’s Shanghai Red-Braised Pork Belly
RECIPE: Basic Winter Greens Stir-Fry
More about Lunar New Year traditions
• There’s a wealth of great info about Chinese New Year traditions at The Woks of Life, including menus.
• Award-winning cookbook author (and friend of Cooks Without Borders) Andrea Nguyen has a delicious post about Vietnamese Lunar New Year (Tet) at her splendid blog, Viet World Kitchen. There you’ll find some cool info about people born in the Year of the Tiger and, of course, a passel of enticing recipes.
More recipes and delicious ways to celebrate
Turnip Cake — a dim-sum favorite, can be even better made at home.
Cooks Without Borders Chinese and Chinese-American recipes page has plenty of other delicious dishes you might explore during the new year festivities. Glorious Lacquered Roast Duck or Chinese Lacquered Roast Chicken would be great centerpieces – both require some advance prep, but the effort involved is shockingly minimal. Lo Bak Go — the daikon cakes you find in dim-sum restaurants (where they often call them turnip cakes), can be even better when made at home; our recipe comes from The Woks of Life. Yangzhou Fried Rice would be awesome, as would Silken Tofu with Soy Sauce. Check that page — I think you’ll find lots you’ll want to try.
And these couple of weeks would be a great opportunity to dive into Chinese culture by cooking through an excellent book. Betty Liu, Fuchsia Dunlop and Eileen Fein-Lo are all great teachers as they write, and books by any of them are great places to start. And there are many more! Liu’s book has the bonus of gorgeous photos of Shanghai, so it feels like a getaway, as well.
