FLUSHING - “Did you know my daughter can’t cook?” That’s one of my mother’s favorite lines. She especially enjoys saying this when meeting my co-workers. This may not seem amusing unless you know that I’m a trained chef. Well, pastry chef that is. I can’t cook Chinese food, and in my mother’s eyes that means I simply can’t cook.

I haven’t lived in the same city as my parents in more than a decade, but no matter how great the distance between us, on the eve of each Lunar New Year I think of my mother and the special banquet dinner she hosts. Because of logistics, I don’t always get to participate, and that saddens me. I have such fond memories of the weeklong family rituals leading up to the holiday meal.

My father would have the chore of soh chun, “brush dust,” because a clean house leads to continued good luck. Each piece of furniture would be dusted and polished to a high sheen. Above the front door, last year’s lucky papers would be pulled down, replaced by new ones that read cheut yap ping on—“Be safe as you go in and out”—and gung hay fat choy—“May you come into good fortune.”

My mother would start cooking at least five days before the New Year. My brother and I learned to stay out of the kitchen for most of the week, but on banquet day, we were pressed into service, running between the dining room and the kitchen, as my mother called out the foods that were ready to be served. She would pump out at least eight intricate dishes all by herself; you would think she had an entire brigade in there with her. She insisted we start eating without her, lest the meal grow cold. Finally, she’d arrive, holding the last dish, greeted by a round of applause.

I don’t know anyone who’s as lucky as I to have grown up with such a phenomenal cook for a mother. In Chinese culture, a satiated belly is a sign of affection, so for my mother, her cooking was the purest form of love. I’ve always wanted to re-create her banquet meal, but I never had the opportunity. As the years have passed I’ve begun to panic that I’d never learn, and my mother’s recipes might someday be lost to me forever. So in recent years it’s become a mission of sorts to record them and host a banquet meal of my own.

Easier said than done. Each year she’d complain that the recipes were too difficult. Perhaps I’d be better off just making snacks instead or picking up some pre-cooked dishes from a fine restaurant? she’d say. But I pressed on, and this year, she finally relented. Still, deciphering her “recipes” was a challenge. When I asked her for specific measurements, she cried, “That is not how you cook Chinese food! I don’t cook by recipe, it’s by feel!” Eventually we worked out an eight-course menu. The number eight is a lucky number and represents good fortune. To pull off a feat like a New Year’s banquet, 2,000 miles away from my mother, I would need it.

I set out on an adventure to Flushing for ingredients needed to cook my mother’s recipes. While walking down the aisles at Hong Kong Supermarket on Main Street, I found myself overwhelmed by so many products that were foreign to me. I decided it was best to keep my mom on the phone while I found the basic dry ingredients, meat and seafood. Then I made it over to Chang Jian Supermarket on Kissena Boulevard for a great deal on Chinese vegetables!

A traditional New Year’s feast begins with an appetizer and in my family, we’ve always started with yim soi op, or salty duck with hoi jip pei, or jellyfish, a Chinese delicacy. The second dish is bok chik gai, steamed white chicken. This dish is a must-have because it symbolizes the phoenix, a bird that represents rebirth. Traditionally, the chicken is served whole and placed on an altar as an offering to our ancestors, along with three bowls of rice, three cups of rice wine, three pairs of chopsticks and a bowl of fresh tangerines. Once we’ve prayed, and our ancestors have eaten, the chicken is cut into individual pieces and served with the head at the top of the platter; serving bok chik gai without the head is bad luck.

Next, my mother serves a vegetarian dish she calls law hong jai, or “Bags of Treasures.” The ingredients—shiitake mushrooms, lily buds and black wood ear mushrooms—each represent good fortune, longevity and prosperity. They’re wrapped in tofu pouches and tied with gourd strips. After that comes Happy Family, an incredible seafood combination that my mother describes as “a little bit of everything that creates harmony.” This dish contains shrimp, scallops, mussels, pork and egg dumplings, which represent yunbao, the currency of old China.

The dish “Pot of Gold” truly shows my mother’s flair for presentation. A kobucha pumpkin is hollowed out and filled with pieces of pork belly that have been coated in ground rice powder. The filled squash is then baked in the oven for almost two hours. The beauty of this dish is how it’s served: The pumpkin is sliced so that the sides fall open and reveal the perfectly steamed pork belly and tender orange pumpkin flesh.

No New Year’s banquet is complete without a steamed whole fish. Yu is often the last dish served and is important because the sound of the word is like the word for abundance. Mom always steamed a whole striped bass in a wok with ginger and scallions. So simple, yet impressive.

The meal ends with one of my favorite Chinese desserts, bar bao fan, or “Eight Jewel Rice.” The glutinous rice is steamed with red bean paste, lotus seeds and colorful preserved fruits. I’m not a huge fan of all the traditional candied fruit and nuts so I make my own version. My mom was never as excited about making dessert, so this was always when room was made for me in the kitchen. And of course, this is the one dish that my mom will say is my best!

WHERE TO BUY INGREDIENTS:

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