I taught in China for a few months quite a lot of years ago and have been back a couple of times since with work. Unfortunately I've never been there for Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival as they usually call it) however one of my students kindly found some moon cakes for us to try (traditionally eaten at Spring Festival). They were a VERY acquired taste, very dry and heavy and apparently very high in calories!
This year, it is the year of the rabbit and it is apparently going to be a placid year of calm reflection after the year of the tiger.
D and I love to cook chinese food together so I'm planning a bit of a cookathon at the weekend. For special occasions or when out to dinner, Chinese people (in my experience) generally have a banquet of lots of different meat/fish and vegetable dishes followed by rice or noodles at the end. D and I usually try and cook at least 3 dishes (2 meat, 1 vegetable) but have some fried rice or noodles alongside.
We have a few cook books but the blog Sunflower food galore is my absolute favourite place to get authentic chinese recipes. My favourites so far are fish fragrant pork (not fishy at all before you start to worry!) and Chengdu chicken. I love spicy Sichuan dishes but there are loads of non-spicy dishes there too to try.
No comments:
Post a Comment