This Monday (February 8th) is Chinese New Year! Even if celebrating Chinese New Year isn’t part of your heritage – why not start celebrating in some small way with your family? Learning about different cultures and traditions through celebrating their holidays is a fun way for you and your family to do something new together and learn all at the same time. Last year I shared a couple of recipes for “fake-out take-out” for Chinese New Year, and this year I’m back to share another recipe, this time for Wok-Fried LoMein Noodles of Longevity.
At Chinese New Year food preparation is important. Chicken and fish are often served whole, with the head and tail, to symbolize a good year from beginning to end. Noodles are made and served as long as possible to represent a long and healthy life. Leafy greens such as lettuce and bok choy are considered lucky foods to have at the new year’s table as they symbolize the fulfilment of wealth for the year ahead. Leeks are also a favourite dish – cut to resemble coins, they are believed to encourage a year of wealth.
I’ve picked up some bok choy and other ingredients and plan to make another dish on Monday, but wanted to share this one now so you still have time to make a quick shopping trip so you can make it!
This is one of a number Chinese New Year’s Recipes created for Atlantic Superstore by a local chef to help us ring in the year of the monkey!
Rinse and soak the dried shiitake mushroom in hot water for at least 30 minutes. Remove stems and julienne. Cut off 1.5” off to of the enoki mushroom. Loosen and separate the mushroom. Bring ½ of large pot of water to a boil, add salt and 1 tsp. oil. Add noodle. Cook the noodle for 4-5 minutes and empty pot into a strainer. Rinse well with cold water. Drain well. Heat remaining oil in a wok on high heat. Add ginger, carrots, bean sprouts, shitake and enoki mushrooms. Stir and cook for 1 minute. Add noodles and chives and mix well. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar and salt. Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Wok-Fried LoMein Noodles of Longevity
Ingredients
Instructions
In my local store we didn’t seem to have any fresh chives so I swapped those for green onions since they have a similar flavour. And I’m pretty sure this was my first time cooking with authentic LoMein noodles. What fun little noodles. I love how they were pre-portioned (scroll back up to my first photo to se what I mean) and were just the right length to easily fit into my pot.
The hardest part of this recipe was fitting everything in my wok – which was actually a shallow frying pan, hahaha. All in all the most time-consuming part was chopping up the ingredients so I’d put this squarely in the “easy mode” category for cooking.
Easy, but pretty impressive all the same – and not to mention tasty!
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And I’ll leave you with this last little tidbit about Chinese New Year in case you’d like to celebrate with more than just a fun meal:
The Chinese New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are all about family. On the eve, loved ones gather for Reunion Dinner, where they sit at round tables to enjoy food and quality time together. In the morning, many welcome the New Year with a respectful gesture, as the younger generation serves tea to their parents and grandparents. During Chinese New Year’s Day, grownups will give red envelopes with money inside to children as a sign of good fortune and wealth. Other gifts are also given to family and friends, especially foods such as candy, nuts and fruits which have different symbolic meanings like wealth, unity and fertility.
May the upcoming year of the monkey treat you and your family well!
Disclosure: I was provided with the ingredients to make this meal by Atlantic Superstore/President’s Choice. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.