Year of the Rabbit

Posted: February 3rd, 2011 | Filed under: Food, Just for fun | Tags: , | 13 Comments »

Today is Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit…. Gong Xi Fa Cai or Gong Hei Fat Choi!

This year, we are postponing our big celebration until the weekend.  Of course we’ll Americanize the whole thing and make my fortune cookies to enjoy after our Dim Sunday meal.  Wait, what is Dim Sunday,  you ask?

Dim Sunday was born out of a soul crushingly bad experience at the ONLY restaurant we know of that serves dim sum in the Nashville area.  If you’ve ever lived anywhere with even half way decent dim sum, you know it’s addictive power.   Going without those delicious morsels of goodness is a sad, sad state of affairs.  I don’t recommend it.

We’d had enough disappointment and deprivation, so it was time to take matters into our own hands.  Schedules permitting, we now make a heap of dim sum on Sunday afternoons for the family.  This weekend we’ll try and add some some traditional CNY fare like noodles, etc..  We try to keep it exciting for the Things by surprising them with what’s on the menu….and yes, (nerd alert!) we make a menu.  Here’s one from a couple of weeks ago we still had laying around.

You like Thing One’s ploy for candy?  When we bring an order to the table, we let them stamp it for us – just like in the restaurants.  They love it.  Now I need to find a cool vintage bar cart to wheel to the table and we are O. fficial!  (Aalto anyone?)

I’ll confess that the BBQ pork bun is frozen as I have not attempted to make that puffy white dough yet…I’m kinda skeered of royally screwing it up, but I will be trying it soon as it’s Thing One’s fave.  Everything else is made by us.  I’ve found egg rolls are a great way to sneak in veggies they normally don’t go for.  One item we are excited to try and make is soup dumplings, or xiaolongbao.  They key is a good homemade stock made with lots of bones to create the gelatin.  We’ve been stashing chicken carcasses in the freezer in anticipation.  Wish us luck!

We’ll go to the Lion Dance and drummers show on Saturday at K & S to get in the spirit…and pick up ingredients!  For glimpses of our past Chinese New Year geekiness…go here.

For a great local post about CNY from someone who is actually Chinese, therefore knows what the hell she’s talking about, check out Tabitha’s post about her family traditions.

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13 Comments on “Year of the Rabbit”

  1. 1 Old Brand New said at 2:25 AM on February 3rd, 2011:

    Gong Hei Fat Choi! Wish you and your family good health and thrifty fortune.

    I just finished stuffing myself at our cny eve family dinner. So good and so full. And nothing beats collecting red envelopes, even for a 28 year old!

    Have a fun dim sunday. Homemade eggrolls and xiaolongbaos sound delish!

  2. 2 Shannon (8foot6) said at 8:10 AM on February 3rd, 2011:

    Gong Hei Fat Choi

    we ordered a roasted pig for sunday!
    superbowl/new years!

  3. 3 admin said at 8:37 AM on February 3rd, 2011:

    Roasted pig….oh wow, that sounds decadent!

  4. 4 Tabitha said at 12:22 PM on February 3rd, 2011:

    Thanks for the linkage and Gong Xi Gong Xi to you and your family as well!

    I’ll have to check out the lion dance if I have time. Saturday’s looking busy but your menu has given me an idea for what to bring to a Superbowl party on Sunday.

    Also, I buy the frozen baos all the time – even my grandma does that back home, it’s amazing what steaming them can do. And they don’t tastes as rancid as they do at the restaurant that shall not be named.

  5. 5 Trish [ modern thrifter ] said at 1:05 PM on February 3rd, 2011:

    Love the menu (and the candy addition). Have a wonderful celebration!

  6. 6 admin said at 1:06 PM on February 3rd, 2011:

    Tabitha- That makes me feel SO much better…maybe I won’t try to make that dough after all! If it’s good enough for your grandma, then it’s good enough for me…besides, Thing One loves the frozen ones, so why change?

    Ha! Dim Sum Voldemort!

  7. 7 erin@designcrisis said at 10:03 AM on February 4th, 2011:

    Chinese bff and I made dumplings from scratch a couple years ago and it was stupid hard. That rice flour dough is tricky.

    Happy New Year!

  8. 8 admin said at 11:08 AM on February 4th, 2011:

    no doubt…we’ve learned that making the filling is key and just buy the premade dumpling wrappers. We have a nice little potsticker press that seals the edges for us…saves SO much time. If only they made one for Shu Mai…

  9. 9 Dana@Mid2Mod said at 2:47 PM on February 4th, 2011:

    The menu idea was so cute that I had to email it to my daughter and son-in-law.

  10. 10 admin said at 5:54 PM on February 4th, 2011:

    Thanks!

  11. 11 S@sha said at 8:27 PM on February 4th, 2011:

    Yum, I love dim sum. Those menus are a really fun idea, but I have to say, chocolate milk with dim sum does not sound appealing to an adult palette! Kids.

    Happy New Year!

  12. 12 nkp said at 11:07 AM on February 7th, 2011:

    You’re awesome. Lucky Things those two are.

  13. 13 bri said at 11:44 PM on February 16th, 2011:

    I do the menu thing as well for the whole week. My husbands likes to know what we are eating, it gives him a chance to complain ahead of time. He hates eating healthy.

    The stamping idea is cute.