Gung Hay Fat Choy. Wishes of Happy New Year for the Lunar New Year beginning on February 17th for the Year of the Horse. As a child growing up in the Bay Area, my family found this the largest celebration in my house. My mother spent days cleaning our home, and Dad made sure he paid all the bills. A new piece of clothing hung in our closets for each of us, one we eagerly anticipated wearing. Then Mom and Dad shopped and cooked for days.
We honored the year to come in the Cantonese fashion. On the first day of the year, we ate jai, a vegetarian dish my parents prepared the days before. The dish with wood ears, black mushrooms, hair vegetable, gingko nuts, and my dad’s fried glutinous balls finished with diced carrots and snow peas was eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In our household, we believed no knives were to be used. Cutting something on that day would mean that all good luck will be severe for the rest of the year.
The feast began on the second day at dinnertime. We gathered at the table to enjoy eight dishes, a number that in Chinese sounds like the word for prosperity and good luck. Whole fish, whole chicken, roast pork, stir-fried beef, stir-fried Chinese broccoli, stir-fried noodles, steamed shrimp, and jai came to the table as quickly as my mother and father could cook them up. We always ended the meal with slices of my mother’s sweet glutinous rice cake.
It was not until I was an adult that I discovered others celebrated the New Year by making and eating dumplings, jiaozi.The activity and feasting were incentives to stay up and welcome the beginning of another year right at the moment the clock switched.
The jiaozi, or Chinese dumpling, originated in the 1800s as a staple among the ethnic Han people of northern China. The dumpling is made by wrapping a piece of dough around a filling, usually minced meat such as pork, lamb, beef, chicken, duck, or goose. Seafood or vegetables are sometimes also used.
The crescent-shaped dumplings resemble silver or gold ingots, symbolizing wealth and prosperity. Therefore, eating them will bring fortune and good luck in the coming year.
In the United States, many of us are familiar with potstickers, which originated in Northern China during the Song Dynasty. The doughy, crispy bottom packages, usually filled with pork, cabbage, ginger, and scallions, are found on most Chinese restaurant menus.
It is believed that the potstickers were created as a mistake. A chef left the dumplings in a boiling wok for too long, and when the water evaporated, the bottoms charred, yielding a crisp crust.
Here in Billings, Xiaoyi Wang invited me to her house to show me how to make dumplings. Her parents were visiting her from northeastern China, from Xiaoyi’s childhood home, Tonghua in the Jilin province. Her mother, Linqin Gao, and father, Yuanzhi Wang, would remain in the states for many weeks, staying long enough to celebrate Chinese New Year with their only child and then to pass on as much knowledge about making dumplings as they could to their daughter.
In this interview, Xiaoyi translates her mother's Chinese instructions. She makes her daughter’s favorite filling.
“So today we’re going to make a very light filling rather than having red meat. We’re going with shrimp and some eggs and then some cabbage,” Xiaoyi says. She admits that she did not favor the meat filling, so her parents have adopted the lighter seafood mixture.
Into a bowl with chopped shrimp, cooked scrambled eggs, ginger, and chopped green onions, Linqin dices up Napa cabbage. In a bowl, she mixes the cabbage with some salt and lets it sit for several minutes. She rinses the cabbage, then adds it after squeezing out the liquid.
“The salt is only a tool to draw the water naturally out of the cabbage, but not to flavor it that much,” Xiaoyi translates.
After mixing in the cabbage, her mother adds mushroom powder to enhance the umami and Xiaoxing wine to mask any fishiness. Finally, ground Sichuan pepper adds a touch of spice. Linqin emphasizes that a good cook uses her senses. Over the years, she has learned to cook from feel, sight, smell, and taste, finding her daughter’s collection of equipment, such as measuring spoons and a scale, unnecessary.
However, what is necessary for successful dumpling-making includes a sharp knife for chopping, a pair of chopsticks for mixing, a large silicone rolling mat, and an electric griddle for clean cooking.
“She actually brought this (silicone rolling mat) from China because every household has one of these,” Xiaoyi shares of the mat that covers much of her counter, making it easy to make not only dumplings but noodles and pancakes.
Wonton or gyoza wrappers purchased at the store can be used for the dumpling's exterior, but Linqin makes her dough with 4 parts all-purpose flour to 1-part hot water. The warmer water loosens the flour's gluten, yielding a softer, more pliable dough.After mixing with water and kneading into a smooth ball, the dough rests for about 15 minutes.
The dough ball is lifted out of the bowl. Linqin pokes a hole in the middle, then rotates the dough around her fingers until it forms an even, thick rope, which she quickly breaks and rolls into a log. She then snaps pieces of dough off the log to roll into small balls.
To achieve an even, circular dough wrapper, she places the dough ball on a flat surface and, with her rolling pin at an angle, rolls the dough around the edges clockwise, starting in the middle and pushing down, rotating the round as she goes.
Xiaoyi says laughingly of creating the perfect round wrapper, “It never happens. I don’t understand how that works.” How that works is practice, and it is evident that Linqin has been rolling out wrappers all her life, as most of her wrappers are perfectly round. When Yuan Zhi steps in to help, it is also obvious he has spent years rolling out dough wrappers.
“You hold the wrap in your hand. Put just a tablespoon of filling right down the middle, then pinch the two pieces together at the center. Then you use your finger to tuck the filling towards the center as you pinch up,” Xiaoyi explains.
At her mother’s insistence, Xiaoyi purchased an electric smokeless indoor grill that heats from both the top and bottom.Linqin places the dumplings on the grill after adding a little oil. She closes the lid and cooks the dumplings for about 5 minutes. After they brown, she uses a pair of chopsticks to flip the dumplings so they can brown on the other side.
After the beautifully browned dumplings are plated, Linqin says, “I am not a professional. This is probably not good.” Her modest statement is deeply cultural: it is not proper to brag, but to be humble.
The dumplings are accompanied by a dipping sauce made with minced garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, and vinegar. “If it is too strong, you can add a little water or maybe add a little bit of chili paste, whatever you prefer,” Linqin shares.
Xiaoyi’s father recounts some of the traditions of celebrating Chinese New Year. “In China, we celebrate the Chinese New Year, and it’s the lunar new year that goes with the cycle of the seasons. So we believe the spring season starts with the Chinese New Year, and that’s the most important holiday in China.”
“So the main thing about celebrating the Chinese New Year is that family gathering is at the center of it,” Yuanzhi says. “The biggest party happens on the last day of the old year, similar to New Year’s Eve here.” Families spend New Year’s Eve making dumplings and eating them to welcome the New Year.
“Right before midnight, you want to go out and set off some fireworks, to get rid of the bad spirits,” Xiaoyi translates. Then the celebrations continue for 15 days, culminating in the Lantern Festival.
“From our understanding that all of these little traditions, they might be silly, but they are our inheritance of our culture. And no matter where you are in the world, if you celebrate the Chinese New Year, you feel like you’re part of something much larger,” Yuanzhi says of honoring the New Year celebration.
