Sweet rice balls (Yuanxiao) – a Chinese cuisine recipe, sweet balls are prepared on the day of the festival of lanterns.
Chinese New Year's Recipes
What to Cook for Chinese New Year?
There are a variety of festive Chinese recipes you can cook for Chinese New Year. For Chinese New Year, you can cook various fish dishes, Jiaozi dumplings, a wide variety of Chinese noodle recipes, Cantonese chicken or Peking duck, chicken or baked chicken wings. Also for Chinese New Year, you can cook fried rice with vegetables and ham, steamed salmon or Shanghai pork, spring rolls and yu-sheng salad, pork in sweet and sour sauce and caramelized fruit, sticky rice cake and sweet rice balls.
Traditional Chinese New Year Recipes
Traditionally, a wide variety of festive recipes are cooked for the Chinese New Year. Since Chinese New Year celebrations take place over a long period of time, the preparation and consumption of various foods plays an important role. In China, various dishes are cooked at this time - New Year's niangao cake made from glutinous rice flour, jiaozi dumplings, tangyuan sweet rice balls and longevity noodles, chunjuan rolls, as well as fish according to various recipes - catfish, carp, crucian carp, pike. Chinese New Year specialties include soy sauce baked chicken wings, Cantonese chicken with ginger and onion sauce, Shanghainese pork and sweet and sour pork, steamed salmon and beef egg noodles, vegetable and ham fried rice and Beijing noodles, yu-sheng salad, peppers with black beans and caramelized fruits in Chinese style. In addition, tangerines, oranges and pomelo are considered traditional New Year fruits for Chinese New Year.
Chinese New Year
Almost the whole world has already celebrated the New Year, but in China they are just about to celebrate it. New Year in China is the most important holiday, begins on the first day of the lunar month and lasts 15 days. In 2024, Chinese New Year begins on February 10th. How is Chinese New Year celebrated? The first two days of Chinese New Year are dedicated to visiting relatives and friends, who are given sweets and gifts wrapped in red paper. Precisely in red, since red in China symbolizes good luck. On the third day, visits and household chores are prohibited. On the fourth day, work can be resumed. On the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, the birth of the world (Yang Yag) is celebrated, and raw fish salad is eaten on this day. On the first night of the full moon this year, red lanterns are lit in all houses and on the street; this day is called the “Lantern Festival”, which also ends the New Year celebrations in China. On this day, be sure to eat rice balls with sweet filling - yuanxiao.