Celebrate Lunar New Year with Kwoklyn Wan

Lunar New Year will be here soon (February 17 this year, to be exact), and it’s not too early to start preparing your menu. For flavorful dishes that symbolize prosperity and new beginnings, take a cue from best-selling author, TV chef, and Milk Street guest teacher Kwoklyn Wan. In his livestream class on January 31st, Long Life Noodles: Chinese New Year with Kwoklyn Wan, you’ll learn how to make must-have Lunar New Year dishes like Longevity noodles, vegetable spring rolls and king prawns.

Read on to learn more about Kwoklyn’s fondest Lunar New Year memories, his approach to cooking at home versus in the restaurant, and the kitchen gear he recommends for great Cantonese cooking.

What is your approach to at-home Cantonese cooking?

When I'm cooking at home, I always try to make sure that I've got everything that I need prepped—all the veggies, all the meat. If I'm velveting, I make sure there’s a pot and some pans out.

It's a lot different cooking at home than it is in a Chinese restaurant or takeaway, purely because we don't have the heat source. You don't have the same kind of woks. But it is doable. We cook Chinese food at home a lot—we're always testing out new recipes, or filming different videos. You just need a little bit of planning. And I suppose another thing that you really have to try and do is clean as you go. You tend to use every pan in the house, every pot in the house, every knife in the house. So if you don't clean as you go along, it becomes quite stressful.

Do you suggest any special equipment to get started making Chinese food at home?

Yeah, there are probably about three or four bits of kit I think you need. I know a lot of people try to cook Chinese food in a flat pan frying pan or a skillet, which is very, very difficult because you need to move the food around very quickly, and because you want to get that pan as hot as possible. So I recommend a wok.

If you have gas at home, with a round bottom wok you will have to get some kind of cradle for it to sit on. If you cook on induction or electric, you will need a flat bottom wok. And obviously the higher the sides of that wok, the better, because you can move the food around. Now, the reason we chop the ingredients so small is so it cooks quickly. So once you've got your wok, get it nice and hot and you can move that food around quickly.

A big chopping board is number two. I always prep all of my meat and my vegetables, and I tend to have them laid out on chopping boards or on plates. But if you've got a nice, big chopping board, you're not trying to scratch around for space. So a big chopping board is a must.

And a very good meat cleaver. I've got a thin meat cleaver, which I use pretty much for chopping vegetables, for chopping meat and preparation work. Everything, really. You know, it tends to be the only knife that I really use in the kitchen. So, yeah, get yourself a good meat cleaver. You don't want the thick type, because they're very much geared towards chopping through bone. You want a medium-thin blade, nice and sharp. Keep it sharp, and it will last you a lifetime.

Your upcoming Milk Street class focuses on Lunar New Year dishes. Is each dish symbolic?

Yes, they are. We're doing the vegetarian mini spring rolls, which are eaten during the Spring Festival because they're symbolic of wealth and prosperity. The golden, cylindrical shape resembles gold bars, making them a lucky food that represents bringing in riches for the year ahead.

We're doing Shanghai longevity noodles. These noodles symbolize long life and prosperity. (You want to keep the noodles intact as well. Don't cut them or beat them around.) Pork, chicken and vegetables represent abundance and balance. And serving on a big platter encourages sharing, which is the heart of the celebration. It's all about sharing food.

The last one we're doing is king prawn with ginger and spring onions. Prawns in Chinese are called “Ha” which, translated roughly, means laughter and happiness. Spring onion is “Kong,” which means intelligence and fresh beginnings, and ginger is “young,” which means health and balance. So together, they make a dish that symbolizes joy, renewal and well-being, perfect for Lunar New Year.

Which special dishes do you and your family make for Lunar New Year?

Traditionally, we always eat long noodles—the longevity noodles—which represent long life. There always tends to be a steamed fish on the table too. Steamed fish, especially whole fish—that's with head and tail on—represents abundance and prosperity. There are always spring rolls, which are for the springtime. And dumplings, representing gold ingots. You tend to find that with the Chinese celebrations, a lot of the food is all about prosperity and longevity and that kind of thing.

What fond memories do you have of Lunar New Year celebrations as a kid?

I've got loads of memories. Every year Mum and Dad would close the restaurant on Chinese New Year just for the family, and we would have a big family party. We would eat amazing food, and the children would run around and cause havoc. We even had a big bouncy castle delivered, and the kids would go outside and would jump around on it. Even as a teenager, I used to jump around on the bouncy castle, if I'm honest.

And then obviously, we’d go through the whole ritual of the lai see pockets, or the Chinese red pockets. The children would line up, and the elders would sit to the far left, I think it is. The elders sit, and then the younger generations would sit to the right, and you would go along the line collecting your Chinese red pockets. It's still something that we do now every year. We've actually got a party in February this year as well. My older cousin, who's kind of more my uncle's age, organizes these events now. It's still something that we do every year.

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.