Lunar New Year Tablescape

I guess I have begun to blog about once a year now!  

Not every year, but most years, we celebrate the Lunar New Year's.  This year we invited a cute family from our church over for dinner.  What was on the menu?  We had Lemon Chicken and Pork Dumplings, Basmati Rice, and Almond Cookies.  I have been making the Lemon Chicken for over 40 years now, but the Pork Dumplings were added to our Lunar Menu a few years ago.  The Pork Dumplings were a huge hit with the pre-teen and teenage boy of the family we invited for dinner.  They wished I had made more, and their mom called for the recipe later.  Today, I am just showing my table, and I have plans to post the Pork Dumpling Recipe later.  You can find the Lemon Chicken recipe here on my blog.  Here is a picture of it.  It is funny, I was deep frying to the last minute, and I did not take pictures of the Lemon Chicken, Rice or Almond Cookies we had for dessert.  I apologize for the lighting; we held the dinner at night, and the lighting is not so great.

 Here is a picture of the full table.  Inside the snake envelopes was a dollar coin and chocolate coins for everyone at the table.  The giving of red envelopes is called "hongbao" during the Lunar New Year

Mandarin oranges symbolize prosperity, good fortune, and happiness.  Red is a prominent color during the Lunar New Year symbolizing luck, happiness, and prosperity.  The brass Chinese characters were bought many moons ago in Chinatown in San Francisco.  I believe they symbolize double happiness and long life.  I am not totally sure about this.

This is a mirror right by our table.  I bought the fans, napkins, chopsticks, and red envelopes from Oriental Trading Company.  I have four children that live away from us, and this year I sent a package at the end of January that included Valentine's things and Lunar New Year things like napkins, envelopes, fans, and fortune cookies.

I bought the Chinese strawberry candies from World Market.  The boys enjoyed them.

This is a huge Chinese dragon puppet my sister Jackie gave me years ago.  I didn't have room for him on my table...LOL, so I placed him on our piano.

Well for now I bid farewell.  One of my favorite things in life is to prepare a special meal for people for people I love.

Steamed Chinese Pork Dumplings

 

 

 

Dear Readers, thank you for taking the time to stop by my little corner of the world that has been really quiet lately.  Today I bring to you a recipe for Pork Dumplings.  You will love it because you can make it up in a flash in a bamboo steamer.  They are delicious and such a fun treat to make.

 

Years ago I received a steamer from a co-worker for a wedding present.  As the years went by, and we had many moves, it disappeared.  I never, ever used the steamer.  Recently I dropped by World Market and picked a steamer up to make some Pork Dumplings for a Chinese Feast we were holding.

 



Chinese Pork Dumplings

Inspired by Leeann Chin, author of Betty Crocker's Chinese Cookbook; we have used her recipes for years.

 

 

Pork Dumplings:

 

1 pound ground pork

1/4 cup finely chopped green onions (include some green)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves

1 egg white

2 tablespoons corn starch

1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt (depending on whether salt has been added to pork)

2 teaspoons light soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Round wonton skins

 

Sauce: 

 

Note:  We have also used Trader Joe's Gyoza Dipping Sauce

1/4 cup light soy sauce

1/8 teaspoon sesame oil

 

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the pork, onion, cilantro, egg white, corn starch, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil and ground pepper.  Mix well.

 

Place one tablespoon pork mixture in the center of the circle.  Bring edges of the wontons up around the pork mixture, pleating the wontons as you work around the pork; leave the top open.  Note:  If you do not pleat enough the wonton skin will pull away from the pork as it steams.

 

 

Here is a picture of the pleating process.  Don't worry.  The process goes quite quickly.

 



 

Place steamer in a non-electric wok.



 

Place a single layer of lettuce in the bottom of the steamer; the lettuce will help so that the dumplings will not stick to the bamboo steamer.  You can also buy liners for this purpose, but lettuce works just fine.  



 

Add water to the bottom of the wok, making sure that the water level does not reach the bottom of the bamboo steamer.  Bring the water to a boil and then add the covered bamboo steamer.  Steam for about 15 to 18 minutes until pork is done.  You will have to add more water.

 

The dumplings happily cooking in the steamer.

 

 

 

I hope you try making these dumplings, and I hope you try cooking with a steamer.  Thank you for dropping by my Red Couch.

 

 





Chinese Festival Table

Dear Red Couch Readers, today is Chinese New Years Table.  My husband teaches at a University with a fair amount of foreign students.  His Chinese students call what we call Chinese New Years, Chinese Festival.  Who knew that?

 

We celebrated Chinese Festival with our neighbors on Saturday night.  They have three delightful little girls, so we put the Chinese Dragon puppet at the end of the table. 

 

 

I put three fans on the table for the girls to take home with them after dinner.

 

 

The table was set with a simple red dinner plate, chop sticks and a little orange.  Oranges in China are passed out liberally during Chinese New Years.  Red symbolizes good fortune and joy, and is used during Chinese New Years. 

 



 

 Gold, like the Chinese brass characters and the chargers, is considered the best color.  During Chinese New Year, money is given out in red envelopes.  We just had gold-foiled chocolate coins on the table, embossed with the words "United States."

 

 

I just love all the red on this table!

 





 

I set the Chinese brass characters, bought in San Francisco's Chinatown years ago.  The brass characters coordinate with the gold chargers.

 

A larger view of the table.

 



 Tulips graced the center of the table.  My daughter cutely asked if tulips were from China.

 

 

We had lemon chicken.  Sorry the photo is a bit off color, as we took the photos at night.  You can find the recipe for Lemon Chicken HERE.  We  have been making this recipe for over 30 years now.  We pressed the white rice in the ramekins, and then we unmolded it.  This was a fun little touch.

 

 

 We also made steamed pork dumplings, and we served them with a delicious Gyoza dipping sauce from Trader Joe's.  This was my first experience with a bamboo steamer, and it worked so well.

 

We had a simple dessert of fortune cookies, almond cookies, and cookie butter cookies.





Wishing you all a Happy Chinese New Years!  Gung Hoy Fat Choy!

Posted with Tablescape Thursday