My Mother’s New Year Dish

Preparation info
  • Serves

    4

    • Difficulty

      Easy

Appears in

By Ken Hom

Published 1998

  • About

The Chinese New Year celebration was always the biggest holiday in my family. We would pay the traditional homage to our ancestors by burning incense at the small family altar that stood at one end of the living room. My job was to rub some honey over the kitchen-god poster on the kitchen wall so that he could report only sweet and good things to the Jade Emperor in heaven.

Then the New Year’s food preparation would begin. Certain foods were always served at the New Year table becau