Chef Jason Chan's Two Essential Recipes for Lunar New Year Celebrations at Home

Not only is Lunar New Year one of the biggest celebrations in the Asia Pacific region, it's easily also one of the most delicious. If you're not celebrating it already, your palate is missing out. Cue family feasts — friends are also more than welcome — and a table stacked with all the greatest hits. The biggest at-home celebration of LNY typically happens on Lunar New Year's Eve and usually takes the form of a dinner that's not unlike Christmas lunch. 

The best part about the celebration is that the dishes you'll typically find are surprisingly simple to prepare and come together in no time at all. 

Whether the celebrations are taking place in Hanoi or Hong Kong, Singapore or Sydney, everyday dishes tend to land on Lunar New Year's Eve dinner tables. There are regional differences when it comes to must-have Lunar New Year dishes, but dumplings and fish or seafood are mainstays in most places where Lunar New Year is celebrated. You'll find them at LNY dinners and enjoyed as ordinary meals throughout the year. 

The enduring appeal of these dishes is just how easily they can be dressed up or down depending on the occasion. And that's before we even factor in how delicious they are.

Seafood is a staple ingredient in many quintessential Lunar New Year dishes. The festivities are a reason to shell out on premium seafood to celebrate the special occasion.

For Chan, Lunar New Year is the time to "have all those special dishes that you don't really get to eat every week."

And it doesn't get more impressive or mouth-watering than XO pipis, which — despite being known as a restaurant special — is a surprisingly straightforward dish that can be replicated at home.

In Chan's recipe, half a kilo of fresh pipis transform into a delectable showstopper that packs an umami punch thanks to the sauce trifecta of XO, soy and oyster.

Ingredients:

500g fresh pipis (if you can't find live pipis, you can substitute with prawns or any other seafood to your liking)
100g Lee Kum Kee XO Sauce
50ml Lee Kum Kee Premium Dark Soy Sauce
50g Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Oyster Sauce
100ml Shao Xing cooking wine
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
1 tsp chicken powder
1L water
50g shallot rondelle
Coriander for garnish

Slurry:

50g corn starch or potato starch
100ml water

Method:

Use a wok or pan on high heat and add Lee Kum Kee XO Sauce and cook for 5–10 secs, deglaze with Shao Xing cooking wine, add water and bring it to the boil. Once boiling, add pipis and cook until they are completely open. Discard any unopened pipis.

Add Lee Kum Kee Premium Dark Soy Sauce, Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Oyster Sauce, sugar, chicken powder, salt and shallot rondelle and cook for a further minute to infuse all the flavours into the pipis.

Mix slurry and pour into the XO pipis to thicken.

Garnish with coriander or shallot rondelle. 

Dumplings are another dish which sit proudly on dinner tables — particularly in northern China — during Lunar New Year festivities. Traditional dumplings are said to resemble ancient Chinese money and are symbolic of prosperity. Today, all kinds of dumplings and wontons make the festive cut. Whether they're crescent-shaped dumplings, wontons or siu mai, this is a dish that is great for everyday dinners as well as during Lunar New Year. For an elevated everyday wonton or siu mai (the only difference is how you wrap them), this recipe is as fun as it is delicious. Finesse your folding skills by wrapping your parcels of seafood yourself, or get the whole dinner crew involved before sitting down to celebrate.

Ingredients:

250g fresh or frozen prawn meat
250g Queensland Moreton Bay bug meat
25ml Lee Kum Kee Premium Soy Sauce
25ml Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand soy sauce
10g minced garlic
10g coriander root finely sliced (use stems for extra aroma)
5g lime zest
20g sugar
25g potato starch
50ml garlic oil (canola oil can be substituted)
1 packet of wonton skin

Method:

Place prawn and bug meat in food processor and slightly pulse 4–5 times. Ensure the prawn and bug meat retain small chunky pieces for texture.

Take out the processed prawn and bug meat and place in bowl. Add in Lee Kum Kee Premium Soy Sauce, Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Oyster Sauce, minced garlic, coriander, sugar, garlic oil and mix until everything is combined and bound together.

Add in the remaining ingredients: potato starch and lime zest.

CHEF'S TIP: You don't want the starch to form clumps, do not skip step 3 with step 2! 

Place filling in fridge for 30 minutes. Once it is set, you can begin making the dumplings.

Blanch wontons for about 5–6 minutes or until they float.

To serve, place blanched wontons in a bowl and garnish with shallot and a few drizzles of sesame oil. Dip into preferred sauce (see below for sauce options).

Simple Dipping Sauce for WontonAdd Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow Style Chilli Oil, soy sauce, sesame oil and black vinegar. Season to taste.

Simple Dipping Sauce for Siu Mai

Add Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow Style Chilli Oil and soy sauce. Season to taste.

Experience the flavours of Lunar New Year everyday with Oriental Merchant authentic Asian ingredients.