3 ways to celebrate Chinese new year

This Sunday is Chinese new year! It’s about to be the year of the intelligent snake – a year of focus, introspection and steady progress (apparently). Here are three ways celebrate Chinese new year:

1) Make or eat dumplings!

Top: homemade potstickers; Bottom: half eaten cheung fun.

I think if I had a final meal, I would like it to be some kind of Chinese dumpling. My favourite are the deliciously slippery cheung fun noodle dumplings, filled with prawns. I could slurp these up all day, and have been known to order 3-4 dishes of this in one go. Eating dim sum out does not need to be very expensive, and there are great places in London that aren’t very expensive (my favourite is Imperial China in Chinatown). Making them yourself is even cheaper, as I blogged about here.

2) Fill your home with paper lanterns

These paper lanterns from Domestic Fits look super easy to make, and are a cheap and cheerful way to decorate your home or garden (all year round, not just for Chinese new year!)

Apartment Therapy also has 5 really easy DIY tutorials for paper lanterns which are really gorgeous.

3) Read a great book set in China

One of my absolute favourite characters of all time isDirk Struan, pirate, trader, political manipulator, and all round amazing lead character. He’s pretty hot, too. Tai-pan follows his adventures during the settling of Hong Kong and Macau. A long book, so make sure you have time to dedicate to it, but worth it!

Then there’s Shark Fin and Sichuan Pepper, by Fuschia Dunlop – full disclosure, I worked on this briefly at my old job, but it’s an absolutely brilliant read about how Fuschia ended up in the Sichuan region as the only white person and only woman learning how to be a chef.

Are you doing anything to celebrate? I’m out with some friends during this day, but am planning this recipe in the evening – looks yummy and apparently costs under £5!

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