A Taiwanese American Lunar New Year Menu Full of Chicken Dumplings and Lion’s Head Big Macs
When I was growing up, my family always immersed themselves in American holidays. My mom, so keen on adopting the traditions of America, could go toe to toe with the other moms in the sport of suburban decorating when it came to Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. She wanted to adapt, to be that all-American family from the outside, no different than any other household in our neighborhood.
And yet, no matter how hard our family tried to separate our two cultures, burying our Taiwanese heritage over time while projecting Americanness, the food of our family during the Lunar New Year was too delicious to ignore. Although there were no flashing lights or ornaments, if you looked closely enough in the quiet of winter, you might have noticed windows foggy from the constant fragrant steam of bamboo steamers when cooking pork dumplings. Or you might have heard the crisp sizzling sounds of hot oil being poured onto layers of fresh scallions and ginger on whole steamed fish, a burst of fragrance permeating through the porch screen and lingering throughout the cul-de-sac for hours.
You may have been tipped off by the gleeful yells of a ruthless grandma taking all of her children's money playing mah-jongg, the clinks of coins and cash intermingled with the slurps of rice cakes drenched in glistening soy sauce. Whether we liked it or not, it was dishes like the ones on Lunar New Year, celebrated in the comfort of our own homes, that would be the constant thread that kept us tethered to our roots.
In this menu I’ve brought together dishes that speak to both my traditional Taiwanese roots and memories in my Midwestern suburban kitchen. It’s a nod to the modern American table today, where Big Macs can have patties made of lion’s head meatballs, and Grandma’s dumplings can be filled with seasonal ingredients like fennel and apple in the winter. Two seemingly disparate cultures, Taiwanese and American, together on one common table.
Photo by Frankie Gaw1/6Grandma’s Pearl Meatballs
These pearl meatballs are a delicate homestyle dish that’s always been a staple at our Lunar New Year family get-togethers. This was one of the very first recipes my grandma taught me when I started learning to cook from her. I remember following her lead as she combined a familiar mixture of pork, Napa cabbage, ginger, and scallions into a meatball, then rolled it in grains of soaked sweet glutinous rice that looked like pearls. After an 18-minute steam, she would lift the steamer lid to reveal glistening sticky rice balls, every grain soaked with pork juice and the aroma of bamboo. This dish can be traced back to the Hubei province of China, and it’s one of the dishes that makes me proud to be Asian. Though it’s simple, with minimal ingredients, it delivers so much soul.
Photo by Frankie Gaw2/6Lion’s Head Big Macs
Sometimes when eating during Lunar New Year, you begin to feel hot. You start to look around at your family members and you notice beads of sweat slowly emerge on their foreheads as their eyes widen with hunger. Grandma has just opened the lid to the lion's head meatballs, a casserole dish filled with simmering broth, large pork meatballs, and Napa cabbage stewing together. Its fragrant presence on the table guarantees an increase in both the collective temperature and overwhelming joy in the dining room. It’s an iconic dish originating in eastern China that has since spread to all parts of China and Taiwan. I grew up eating lion’s head meatballs with rice, but as a kid with a vast imagination and a craving for McDonald’s, I always noted the meatballs’ similarity to the burger patties in my beloved Big Macs. This recipe is a dream-turned-reality for kid Frankie, a dish that probably shouldn’t exist outside of my own brain but has become my own guilty pleasure. It’s really a love note to the suburban Midwest seen through the lens of my heritage—a dish that embraces the two parts of my identity that I often hid from each other while growing up. Divided no more, here they are brought together on one plate in the form of Lion’s Head Big Macs.
Photo by Frankie Gaw3/6Chicken, Fennel, and Apple Guo-Tie
When I think of Lunar New Year, I think of a kitchen island filled with generations of women folding dumplings together while speaking Mandarin. My mom is one of three sisters, so whenever they get together with my grandma, the kitchen always feels like a portal, a glimpse into their past lives in Taiwan playing out in real time under the glow of fluorescent lights. The filling we usually make is a classic pork and cabbage, but I sometimes like to switch it up by incorporating new flavors into the mix. In this dumpling, sweet apple and savory chicken merge, and pickled fennel is the slightly acidic bridge that brings the two divergent flavor profiles together. I usually pan-fry these dumplings but they are just as delicious steamed or boiled.
Photo by Frankie Gaw4/6Whole Steamed Fish
This dish is the centerpiece of our family's table during Lunar New Year. It's a recipe that's been passed down from my grandma to my aunt and then to me. At home, my uncle cuts the fins and scrapes any stubborn scales that have been left on. My aunt makes a simple marinade of rice wine, soy sauce, and honey that provides a simple base of flavor to this delicate fish. I'll watch my grandma and aunt chop the scallion and ginger into perfect julienned slices, a skill that many people have only ever seen on Top Chef. Once it’s cooked, a pile of julienned scallions adds freshness to the fish’s gentle taste. The final touch is a pour of hot oil over the top, providing an additional flash-fry of aromatic flavor as the oil sizzles over the aromatics and drips onto the tender fish. Eating the steamed fish is a communal activity. We dig in with chopsticks, navigating around the bones to savor every tender morsel as we fight to give the most tender piece of fish to one another.
Photograph by Isa Zapata. Food Styling by Kat Boytsova. Prop Styling by Stephanie De Luca5/6Mushroom YouFan
This recipe by Jessie YuChen reminds me so much of my grandma's sticky rice. It was my Achilles’ heel during Lunar New Year because I would inevitably find the meaty and umami flavors of this dish so delicious that the majority of my stomach would become rice, with little room left for any other dishes my family painstakingly made. As a result, most of my Lunar New Year dinners were spent eyeing the sticky rice at a healthy distance, its distinct smell of soy and sesame oil taunting me to eat more.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Lillian Chou6/6Rice Cake With Mixed Vegetables
Rice cakes, a delectably chewy, oval-shaped noodle, may be one of the most fun-to-eat carbs you may encounter. There’s even a term in Chinese that perfectly describes that satisfying chewiness that comes with eating a rice cake called “Q” (there's no Chinese character for this, it's literally the letter Q!" Or "QQ!" if it's extremely satisfying). This recipe, by Hsiao-Ching Chou, brings back memories of my family serving rice cakes during Lunar New Year, its surface the perfect vehicle for a coating of soy based sauce and chewy bliss.
