I’m following the lead of Clarissa Wei, who brought to The Times this week a celebration of a particularly Singaporean Lunar New Year menu. It’s built around the cooking traditions of the Chinese diaspora there — “Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew from southeastern China,” she writes, and “Hainanese from the island province of Hainan; Hakka, a migrant group spread out all over China; and Peranakan, who have been in the region for over 400 years and also have mixed Malay and European ancestry.”
The shopping may take some time, since I’ll be using the internet and not the local Singaporean market that I wish existed where I’m staying right now. I hope you’ll join me as I cook on the fly.
There’ll be Nonya Hokkien stir-fried noodles (above) tossed in a savory sauce anchored by juicy pork belly and shrimp, and topped with pale yellow egg strips, bright red chiles and vibrant mustard greens. (I’ll need some sambal belacan, a pungent hot sauce of fermented dried shrimp and chiles, to give that dish a bit of heat.)
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Also, nasi biryani and chicken curry! Singapore, Clarissa reports or reminds, depending on your experience, is one of the few places where those dishes — with origins on the Indian subcontinent — appear on Lunar New Year tables. I’m in.
Chap chye will be grand as well, braised chopped cabbage, shiitake mushrooms and carrots. Some will add cubes of pork for flavor, or lily buds for texture and, often, a heap of black moss fungus on top because its Cantonese name — fat choy — is a homophone for good luck.
And of course there’s nian gao, sweet rice cake, this version made with baked sweet potato. Nian gao is a homonym for the Chinese phrase “nian nian gao sheng,” which means to rise to greater heights year after year. I hope that’s the case for all of you, whatever you cook.
