What are the three essential items for Tianjin New Year’s Eve dinner?

Time flies! Time flies! In a blink of an eye, the Spring Festival is here again. Last year’s New Year’s Eve dinner is still vivid in my mind, and now, I have to prepare a new New Year’s Eve dinner. Although I feel a little sad watching the back of my youth go further and further away, when I think of the New Year’s Eve dinner and the big table of delicious food, my interest returns. Foodies are so simple and so easily satisfied! Every family’s New Year’s Eve dinner has several traditional dishes that must be prepared. Below, the editor will tell you one by one!

The first big dish, which is more than enough every year - braised carp. Braised fish is called nao fish in Tianjin. Tianjin people like to eat fishy food, and boiled fish is a home-cooked dish that almost every household can make. Tianjin's home-cooked fish is first fried until golden brown and then simmered in sweet and sour sauce. The finished product is maroon in color, soft and tender in texture, salty and slightly sweet, and has a strong sauce flavor. It is a great dish to go with wine and rice. As the saying goes, "every year has more than enough" to celebrate the New Year. Of course, braised carp is an essential highlight on this dinner table! The second big dish, good luck and good luck - boneless smoked chicken has the same auspicious sound. It is one of the main dishes on the New Year's Eve dinner, which means good luck and good luck! Although there is no local smoked chicken brand in Tianjin that is popular across the country, the enthusiasm of Tianjin people for eating chicken is unambiguous. Almost every district and town has its own brand of smoked chicken. Every afternoon when I get off work, most of the people queuing up on the roadside are buying smoked chicken. Tianjin's smoked chicken has a strong medicinal aroma, is soft and tasty, salty and delicious, melts in the mouth, and is suitable for all ages. When visiting during the New Year, if you bring two boneless smoked chickens, they will definitely be popular!

The third major dish, happiness, wealth, longevity and happiness - Sixi meatballs. Sixi meatballs are one of the classic traditional Chinese dishes and belong to the Shandong cuisine. It consists of four meatballs with good color, aroma and taste, embodying the four great events of life: happiness, wealth, longevity and joy. It is often used at wedding banquets, birthday banquets and other banquets to take its auspicious meaning. Sixi meatballs are also related to football. If in the Asian Cup, each Chinese men's football team eats four balls, they will be able to score at least four goals against Iran, because if they score four goals, they are called "Big Four". How can they lose so miserably? This glutinous rice eight-treasure rice dish is a must. One is that it means good luck, and the other is because this eight-treasure rice is the finale dish made by my mother.

The grand finale, the glutinous rice and eight-treasure rice dish that gathers wealth from all directions. Every Spring Festival, I prepare the ingredients a week in advance in order to make this eight-treasure rice dish. It is very laborious to select various dried and fresh fruits, design patterns, wash and soak the rice. Whenever the New Year's Eve dinner comes to an end, my old lady will serve this bowl of eight-treasure rice herself, and she will mutter the words "Here comes the cornucopia."