What do you eat on Lunar New Year? 5 dishes for May 5 to ward off bad luck and welcome luck

What to eat on Lunar New Year to welcome good luck is something that many people care about. Here are some suggestions for May 5 Tet dishes that everyone should know.

Tet Doan Ngo is one of the important Tet holidays of Vietnamese culture. Depending on the region, the dishes on May 5 will be different. So, what do you eat on Lunar New Year?

What is Dragon Boat Festival?

Lunar New Year is the 5th day of the 5th lunar month every year. Depending on the region, people call Tet Doan Ngo with different names such as Tet Doan Duong, Tet killing insects…

Lunar New Year is one of the important Tet holidays of Vietnamese people

The concept of the ancients, the Dragon Boat Festival is the day when the fire in heaven and earth rises. With agriculture, this is the time when insects bloom a lot, causing damage to crops, so people will proceed to destroy these types. Some insects can also be used as food.

Dragon Boat Festival is not only in Vietnam but also a traditional New Year of China, Japan or Korea…

What to eat on New Year’s Eve?

Not too solemn like the Lunar New Year or the Qingming Festival, but the Dragon Boat Festival is also an occasion that every family respects. On this 5th of May, each family makes familiar dishes to offer to their ancestors. Some of these include:

1. Banh ash (banh ú ash)

Banh tro is also known as banh gio, banh ú tro. This type of cake is made of glutinous rice, soaked in ash water, which is obtained from burning dried plants.

Glutinous rice after soaking will be wrapped in banana leaves. This cake can be filled with or without filling.

On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, people often eat bro cake (banh ú ash).

After the ash cake is cooked, it will have a clear brown color, when you eat it, you will feel the softness, flexibility and coolness of the mouth. People often dip ash cake with extremely delicious molasses. This cake is also especially good for the digestive system.

How to make ash cake is very simple, you can refer to the following recipe:

Materials needed: Glutinous rice with yellow flowers (500g), salt, ash water (500ml), bamboo leaves / dong leaves, white string.

How to do this:

– Glutinous rice chooses round, stretchy grains. Wash the rice thoroughly and then drain it.

– Mix 500ml of Chinese ash water with 1 liter of water and stir well. Pour in the washed glutinous rice to soak. Usually, the soaking time of rice will last for more than 20 hours so that the rice grains are soft enough.

– Gently wash with your hands, if you see that the sticky rice is broken, then rinse the sticky rice with cold water, sprinkle a few grains of salt, and then shake it up.

– Clean bamboo leaves and form a funnel. Put another layer of leaves on the bottom, then add 1 tablespoon of sticky rice. Fold the top of the bamboo leaf and then wrap the cake tightly with twine. Perform sequentially until the rice runs out of leaves, then stop.

– Put the cake into the pot, add water to cover the surface of the cake, then bring it to a boil for 2-3 hours, then the cake is cooked. Take out the cake to cool and enjoy.

Traditional ash cakes made this way are extremely delicious. Very eye-catching amber cake. The chewy, soft, fragrant cake typical of sticky rice adds a little flavor of bamboo leaves, which is very attractive.

The dish of ash cake will be more round when dipped with thick molasses.

2. Glutinous rice wine with yellow flowers

If asked what to eat on Tet holiday, it is impossible not to mention sticky rice and wine.

This dish is made from sticky rice with yellow flowers or sticky rice. Glutinous grains are carefully selected, both round and glossy.

Sticky rice wine is spicy and sweet

People wash the rice and cook it after it is fermented for a few days and then enjoy it. Delicious glutinous rice wine has a spicy, sweet aroma just enough. The time to brew and enjoy the rice wine must be exactly so that this dish is not sour, spicy and difficult to eat.

According to the concept, the Lunar New Year, eating sticky rice and wine will make bacteria and insects in the body drunk, easier to destroy.

To make delicious sticky rice wine, you need: Delicious sticky rice (1kg), wine yeast (1 bag).

Instructions on how to make delicious sticky rice wine:

– Glutinous rice is washed and then soaked for about 1 hour so that when the rice is cooked evenly, the round seeds are more delicious.

– Put the rice in the pot, add water and cook. Note, sticky rice absorbs very little water, so you need to add less water than normal rice.

– When the rice is cooked, you eat the sticky rice on a clean tray and wait for it to cool, then sprinkle with yeast. Use your hands to mix the yeast rice mixture, then put it in a dried banana leaf, wrap it, and place it in a ceramic pot with a tight lid.

– With summer weather, it only takes about 3-5 days for your sticky rice to be cooked and ready to eat.

By making this sticky rice wine, the rice wine grains will be extremely succulent, sweet, and very tasty. When eating a bit spicy, fragrant will make you eat forever and do not want to stop.

3. Duck meat

People in the North usually only eat ash cake, rice and sticky rice wine, but people in the Central region especially have to prepare duck meat.

The reason duck meat is present in the feast of the Dragon Boat Festival is because in May is the time when duck meat is delicious, fragrant and fatty. This type of food is cold, so it is very suitable to eat on hot summer days.

People in the Central region often eat duck meat on the 5th of May

In addition, duck meat is also a black dish, dispelling all bad luck and praying for a new month of good luck.

The delicious dish from duck meat for the Lunar New Year that many people choose is boiled duck with ginger fish sauce or delicious crispy skin roasted duck.

Instructions for boiling delicious duck:

– To save time, buy ready-made ducks, then use salt and crushed ginger to rub the outside and then rinse with water to eliminate odors.

– Put the cleaned duck in the pot, pour water to cover the duck’s face, add a few pieces of ginger, purple onion, then turn on the stove and bring to a boil.

– Use chopsticks to poke the duck meat to check if the duck is cooked. If no red water comes out, remove the duck to a plate to cool and then cut into bite-sized pieces.

– Mixing garlic ginger fish sauce with or dipping it with soy sauce is also not a bad suggestion.

4. Lychee – plum

On the tray of offerings for the Lunar New Year, two familiar fruits in May are indispensable: lychee and plum.

The ancients said that plums have a hot nature, so they help kill insects effectively

According to the Vietnamese concept, because lychee and plum are hot, so after eating sticky rice, insects have been drunk, eating more plum lychee will help destroy them at the root.

5. Sticky rice tea

Sticky rice is the next name on this list. People in the North will cook green bean soup, in the Central will be lotus seed and millet tea, and Southerners will choose water drifting tea.

Green bean tea is an indispensable offering in the Lunar New Year worshiping tray of the Northern people

Delicious tea dishes will help to make the tray of offerings on the Lunar New Year more complete.

How to cook green bean soup to worship the Dragon Boat Festival:

– Peeled green beans, washed and then soaked for about 2 hours to bloom.

– Put the soaked green beans in the pot and then add water to cover the beans for about 1 inch. Turn on the stove to boil for about 20 minutes, then add hot water and simmer for about 15 minutes.

– Dilute tapioca flour and pour it slowly into the tea pot. Stir gently until the tea is thick and not lumpy.

– Heat coconut milk and sugar until thick, then add vanilla powder and turn off the heat.

– Scoop the green bean tea into a bowl, add coconut milk on top and you’ve got a perfect bowl of tea offering on May 5.

After making offerings to the ancestors, the owner will lower the offering tray for the whole family to receive blessings.

Just now are some suggestions to help you answer the question of what to eat on New Year’s Eve. Hopefully, through this article, you have learned how to prepare a full offering ceremony for the upcoming May 5th Tet holiday of your family.