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Overview
Lunar New Year is famously a food-focused holiday. With celebrations traditionally stretching over about a two-week period, Lunar New Year dinner is one of the holiday's highlights. The dinner, which typically happens on the eve of Lunar New Year, is more accurately described as a feast — one where families gather, and the table teems with mouth-watering, home-cooked dishes.
Josh Mullins
We love a celebration at home centred around good food, so, in partnership with Oriental Merchant, we sought out expert advice from chef Jason Chan on what essentials to stock our pantries with for Lunar New Year and beyond. Not only is Chan the owner of Rice Kid, a newly opened pan-Asian restaurant inspired by the flavours of Southeast Asian cuisine, but he's also clocked up well over a decade as a chef in leading Chinese restaurants in Sydney.
He snuck us into his pantry to show us exactly what he'll be cooking with come this Lunar New Year. Our best discovery? His go-to essentials aren't reserved exclusively for Lunar New Year — they're versatile ingredients that are just as invaluable for special celebrations as they are for midweek meals.
Josh Mullins
Surprisingly, Chan reveals that despite going all out on premium ingredients for Lunar New Year, he'll season them during the cooking process with everyday pantry staples. "Lunar New Year is more about the family gathering. You'll splurge and have things you don't normally have everyday, I think that's what makes it special. For our Lunar New Year feast, we usually have e-fu noodles, mudcrab, pipis — we go all out."
On Capturing the Essence of Asian Cuisine
The flavours of Asian cuisine though, are achieved with familiar products like "soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, Shaoxing [wine]."
"Asian — Chinese — flavors [are] bold. I wouldn't use the word heavy, but it's flavoursome. It's every bite that you take. There's sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami, you get the taste of all that."
"I think that's what Asian cooking is all about, especially Chinese cooking, where there are so many different ingredients and so much variety [to choose between]. It's just packed with flavour."
"In my pantry at the moment, I've got the Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Oyster Sauce, the Lee Kum Kee Dark Soy Sauce, the Lee Kum Kee Premium Soy Sauce."
Josh Mullins
He also showed us his stash of Hakubaku noodles and Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow Chilli Oil."It's about what you can do with the ingredients out of the pantry to create something amazing," explains Chan.
Some staples are genuine must-haves for Chan.
"You can't cook without soy sauce, that's what I say. I think every household should have [it]."
Meanwhile, others he believes are slept on.
"I think oyster sauce is amazing ... it gives more body and more depth [to dishes]."
Josh Mullins
Ultimately though, it's not about a single ingredient.
"It's more about how you incorporate everything together. I think every dish has a different element to it and every ingredient in our pantry, I think, works with a certain dish to enhance its flavour."
On Making the Most of Pantry Essentials
Chan says the special dishes of Lunar New Year can easily be translated into everyday dishes too."Let's say we did a lobster, for example, for Lunar New Year. How do you tone it down and still use all the pantry ingredients that you have? You choose a different protein. You might use fish, you might use prawns."
The same applies to the e-fu Lunar New Year noodles he calls out.
Josh Mullins
"[You could substitute] egg noodles — thin egg noodles, thick egg noodles. If you're [feeling] brave, you can use ramen noodles, soba noodles, udon noodles. It's how far you want to explore, but they're all good."
Experience the flavours of Lunar New Year everyday with Oriental Merchant authentic Asian ingredients.