Celebrating Chinese New Year 恭禧發財

Kung Hei Fat Choy everybody!  When it comes to New Year celebrations, we pale into comparison with the Chinese, who have it down to a fine art.  2015 is the Year of the Goat/Sheep and Chinese New Year begins on Thursday 19th February. With 15 days of holiday festivities, that means cooking a lot of food to feed friends and family, so I thought I'd cook a Chinese banquet for us in Maison Babaduck to celebrate (no goat or sheep though...).

First up, it was time for some serious cleaning and decluttering to sweep away any ill-fortune lurking around the house before we decorated the table with lucky red envelopes.  The colour red symbolises luck and wealth so here's hoping for a prosperous 2015.

We started off our New Year banquet with some Chicken Satay - loads of really tender chicken breast stirfried with some mangetout in satay sauce with some noodles and loads of chopped peanuts on top for a delicious salty crunch.  Next up with a spicy Green Thai Curry with prawns and baby sweetcorn.  The sweet and juicy prawns worked beautifully with the creamy coconut milk curry.

Our third dish was stirfried Pork in a Thai sweet chili sauce with some spring onions and cashews on some lightly steamed Chinese cabbage and we rounded off our feast with a bowl of Chicken Chow Mein on rice noodles, full of lovely aromatic ginger.

After so many delicious dishes, we only had room for a few fortune cookies for dessert.  I love the ritual of tearing open the little red and gold foil wrappers and snapping the cookie in half while trying not to tear the paper fortune inside.

Here's a few tips and tricks for your own Chinese New Year Banquet :

Never, ever cross your chopsticks.  It's considered to be very rude indeed.  Also, don't stick your chopsticks upright in your bowl of rice, spear food with a single chopstick or pass food from your chopstick to somebody else's chopstick.  That's really nasty.

If you want to join in the celebrations, there's festivals in Dublin, London, Manchester, Edinburgh & Glasgow.  How are you planning to celebrate - do let me know.

In association with Amoy