Lunar Cuisine: Asian Delicacies Await If Your New Year is Near … And Even If It’s Not.

By Joan Obra, The Fresno Bee, Calif.

Jan. 29–With the Lunar New Year arriving Feb. 7, local Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese families are abuzz. They’re headed to Asian shops and restaurants for dishes and ingredients needed during New Year celebrations.

Even if you don’t follow the lunar calendar, the upcoming New Year is a good time. It allows adventurous diners a chance to taste unfamiliar flavors. And since some of these dishes are lucky, they may even bring you good fortune.

To expand your palate, try these foods:

Duk guk and Man doo guk: These soups are traditional during Korean New Year celebrations, says Sorina Oh, owner of Samos Kitchen in the Mission Village shopping center at Shaw Avenue and Fresno Street. Duk guk (also known by ddeok gook, tteok guk and other spellings) contains chewy disks called Korean rice cakes. Man doo guk (also known by mandoo guk and other spellings) contains dumplings filled with meat, vegetables and tofu. Samos serves both.

“Most people have both [soups] on the table, so they can choose the one they like,” Oh says.

One reason duk guk is eaten during Korean New Year is because it’s “easy to eat and digest,” Oh says. That means everyone, from the young to the old, can enjoy the soup. And the ritual of eating duk guk on Lunar New Year is important for everyone. It symbolizes turning one year older.

Jab cae: This dish (also known as jabchae, japchae or chapchae) is customary for Korean New Year, says Oh, who serves it at Samos. The dish uses sweet potato noodles, which don’t break easily — they represent people’s lives, and “if it is a strong noodle, it is a long life,” Oh says.

Banh tet and banh chung: In Fresno, Linda Seafood Market at Fresno Street and McKinley Avenue is the place to go for these bundles of banana leaves wrapped around steamed rice, mung beans and pork. Banh tet is shaped like a long cylinder, while banh chung is shaped like a square. They are traditional throughout the country, but the preferred form of these Vietnamese rice cakes differs according to region.

Tina Phelipot, co-owner of Thierry’s European Bakery at Bullard and Marks avenues, offers another explanation for the differing shapes.

“That’s a reference to heaven and Earth,” says Phelipot, who is Vietnamese. “The moon is round, and the Earth is square.”

Like other foods for the Vietnamese New Year, banh tet and banh chung keep well. The food for the celebration must be made in advance, says Phuong Chu, owner of Linda Seafood. Cleaning, cooking or spending money on the first day of the new year are all considered bad luck, she says.

Thit kho: Around this time, you might see Vietnamese cooks buying coc- onut juice and fish sauce (the salty juice of fermented fish) at Asian stores. They’ll need these ingredients for thit kho, a traditional dish of braised pork and eggs.

Thit kho is customary for New Year celebrations in the south of Vietnam, Ann Le writes in “The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California’s Little Saigon” (Insiders’ Guide, $15.95). “Salting meats keeps the foods preserved for much longer in a land of no refrigeration,” she writes. “The beauty of kho dishes is that they taste even better the next day.”

In addition to keeping well, thit kho is lucky because it contains eggs, which signify fertility and birth, Phelipot says.

Candies and desserts wrapped in red and gold: During this time of year, stores such as Linda Seafood and R-N Market at Cedar and Herndon avenues feature lots of foods in containers of red and gold. These lucky colors are wrapped around a variety of candies; flavors include melon, lotus seed, soursop (a fruit), coconut, sesame and ginger. Vietnamese and Chinese folks bring these packages as gifts to their families during Lunar New Year, say Phelipot and William Kong of R-N Market. Also wrapped in red and gold is banh in, a sculpted Vietnamese dessert of ground rice, sugar and sometimes tapioca powder. R-N carries a limited variety of banh in. Linda Seafood has a wider variety of this food.

If you’d like extra luck, choose pineapple cake and lotus seed candy in red and gold containers, Kong says. Pineapple is a symbol for attraction of wealth, while lotus seed signifies fertility.

Korean rice cake soup (Duk guk)

Makes about 4-6 servings

For the soup:

1 pound beef brisket

3 gallons water

1 large yellow onion, peeled

1 (2-inch) piece ginger, peeled

1-2 pounds frozen Korean rice cakes (see notes)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1 tablespoon garlic, minced, plus more, if desired

1 teaspoon ground red chili pepper

1 teaspoon sugar

3-4 green onions

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

For the garnish:

2 eggs

Oil, for frying eggs

Nori, to taste (see notes)

In a large pot, bring brisket, water, onion and ginger to a boil. Continue boiling until soup has reduced by one-third, about 1 1/2 hours. Cool the soup, and skim off oil and other impurities. Remove and discard onion.

Place the frozen rice cakes into a bowl of cold water, and let soak for 15 minutes.

As the rice cakes soak, transfer the meat to a separate plate. Cut into slices about 2 millimeters thick and 1 inch long. Mix brisket slices with soy sauce, sesame oil, 1 tablespoon garlic, ground chili pepper and sugar. Set aside.

Slice green onions into 1-inch pieces, and set aside.

Taste the soup, and add salt to taste. Return to a boil. Add rice cakes and cook for 10 minutes, until the cakes are chewy. During the last two minutes of cooking, add the green onions. As the soup cooks, separate the egg whites and yolks into separate bowls. Using a fork, whip contents of each bowl. Heat oil in a saute pan, then add egg whites all at once. Fry, then remove from pan, and cut into thin strips. Repeat with egg yolks. Set aside. Slice nori into thin strips. Set aside.

Taste the soup again, and add more minced garlic, salt and pepper if desired.

To serve: Place soup and slices of rice cake into bowls. Top with meat, strips of cooked egg yolk and egg white and sliced nori.

Notes: Korean rice cakes, called duk, ddeok or ttokkuk, are sold at Korea Asian Market in the Mission Village shopping center at Shaw Avenue and Fresno Street. Nori, thin sheets of dried seaweed, is widely available at Asian stores.

— Sorina Oh, Samos Kitchen

Pork braised in caramel sauce (Thit kho)

Makes 4 servings

2 hard-boiled eggs

1/2 pound pork shoulder, with fat and rind (or slab bacon)

21/2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil

1/3 cup fish sauce (see notes)

11/2 cups fresh coconut juice or coconut soda such as Coco Rico (see notes)

1 scallion, chopped into rings

1/2 tablespoon ground black pepper

Peel the eggs, and set them aside. Cut the pork into large, 2-inch cubes, cutting against the grain, so that each piece includes the lean meat, fat and rind. Pat dry.

Sprinkle the sugar over the pork cubes to lightly coat each piece. Set them aside in a shallow dish for at least 15 minutes or up to 30 minutes, allowing the sugar to coat and penetrate the meat.

In a clay pot or saucepan, heat the oil on medium heat. Add the sugared pork; cook, tossing occasionally, for about 10 minutes, allowing the sugar to caramelize on all sides.

Add the fish sauce, and stir the cubes to evenly cover them. Then add 1/3 cup of the coconut juice or soda, and bring the pot to a boil. Let it boil for 5 minutes, then lower the heat to a simmer.

Cover the pot, and let it simmer for 30 minutes. Then add the hard-boiled eggs, and simmer for an hour, or until the meat is tender. Keep checking the pot and, as the liquid reduces, add more coconut juice or soda in 1/3-cup increments until it is all used. The sauce should reduce, but you do not want the meat and eggs to dry out and burn.

The dish is ready once the liquid has been reduced to a thick caramel sauce. The pork and eggs should be a light brown color, and the pork should be extremely tender.

Garnish with the scallions and ground black pepper, and serve with hot rice.

Notes: Fish sauce, also known as Vietnamese nuoc nam, Thai nam pla or Philippine patis, is widely available in Asian stores.

Coconuts and coconut juice are sold at some Asian and Hispanic stores. Try KC Super Market at Winery Avenue and Kings Canyon Road or Vallarta Supermarket at Butler and Chestnut avenues.

— “The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California’s Little Saigon,” by Ann Le (Insiders’ Guide, $15.95)

The reporter can be reached at jobra@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6365.

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