Chinese New Year Recipes

Each year, Ka and Jan Yeung throw a modified version of the traditional Chinese New Year party in their Dallas apartment. Ka's daughter Angela, who graduated from the Ferrandi Culinary School in Paris, has given the Asian menu a French flair.

The following recipes are a blend of Asian ingredients with French technique.

 

HoneyBunny Lychee Martini
Recipe by Ka and Jan Yeung

The sake is a milky cloud that neatly hides the white lychee until you have taken enough sips to reveal it. This refreshing drink is also delicious in summer.

Yield: One Martini

One chilled martini glass
Canton ginger liqueur
One whole canned lychee, with 1 ounce juice reserved
1 1/2 ounces Bombay Sapphire Gin
1 1/2 ounces Momokawa Pearl Sake

Mist the chilled glass with ginger liqueur. Place lychee nut in glass. Put remaining ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into the glass and serve.

"One of the best cocktail guides I have ever used is Sauce Guide to Cocktails, found on www.sauceguides.com," says Jan. "I love the info on where a cocktail originated and the recipes are easy to alter for your own particular taste. For my recipe I modified the Lychee & Rose Petal Martini that was adapted from a recipe created in 2002 by Dick Bradshell for Opium, London, England."

 

Chinese New Year Entrée
Pan-roasted Halibut with Peppers, Shiitake Mushroom, and Lotus Root
Recipe by Angela and Ka Yeung

This recipe is an example of what the Yeungs refer to as "French-Asian fusion." Halibut is prepared in a traditional French pan roasting method while the vegetables and sauce are Asian in flavor.

Serves 4

Ingredients
1/2 red pepper
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 green pepper
1/2 orange pepper
4 slices of lotus root
4 ounces shiitake mushrooms
2 tablespoons peanut oil
3 tablespoons chicken stock
Salt and pepper 1/2 small minced shallot
4 halibut filets (about 1/2 pound each)
3 tablespoons peanut oil for fish

Sauce
6 green onions in 3-inch pieces
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 teaspoon chili oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
Sea salt to taste
Ground mixed peppercorns to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Julienne pepper, lotus, and mushrooms. Sauté in peanut oil and chicken stock with salt and pepper, to taste, adding shallots when vegetables are almost done.

Pat the fish filets dry with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Heat oil in oven safe sauté pan. Pan sear the fish in peanut oil on one side until brown. Turn once and immediately roast in the oven for 4 minutes.

Drain fish. Remove to a serving plate and keep warm.

Heat peanut oil in sauce pan and sauté green onion. Turn off heat, mix rest of sauce ingredients with oil. Drizzle sauce over fish. Place sautéed vegetables on top of fish. Garnish with thinly sliced lotus root or vegetables cut into animal shapes, if desired.

Ka gets most of his traditional recipes from his mother, but he also suggests these two cookbooks as points of reference:
The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller, for a look at classic French cuisine adapted for the American palette, and Nobu The Cookbook by Nobuyuki Matsuhisa. Even though the recipes are Japanese, Ka likes this book for its presentation ideas and because it uses Asian ingredients that are also Chinese.