It’s going to be the Year of the Dragon, and the Lunar New Year is Saturday, Feb. 10.
For the Vietnamese community, Orange County is abuzz with plans for Tet, the celebration of the new year.
Enjoy a free three-day festival at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley or the UVSA Tet Festival at the OC Fair & Event Center, which is the biggest Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival in the United States.
Westminster will hold a parade on Saturday, and there are other festivities planned in Little Saigon. For a full list of Tet celebrations in Orange County check out enjoyorangecounty.com.
Fullerton resident Vickie Tran explained how her family celebrates the three-day holiday.
“New Year’s Eve, the family gets together, eat dinner, and around midnight we pray for health and good luck. In Vietnam many years ago we have firecracker, but here we don’t have that,” she said. “Next morning, the first day of New Year, we go to temple in Monterey Park or Westminster.
“New Year we like to wear red for good luck. We wear bright color, like spring,” she added. “We give gifts to relatives. The first day we give red envelopes with money to the kids to wish good luck and happy.”
For dinner they enjoy traditional Tet fare, Tran said. “We have fruit, rice cake, chicken and pork cooked with egg, Thit Kho.”
For this dish, pork belly is braised in a mixture of soy sauce, fish sauce, and brown sugar with boiled eggs. The rice cakes Tran referred to are filled with mung beans and pork belly wrapped and steamed in banana leaves. In the North, they are shaped in a square and called banh chưng; in the South they are round and called banh tet.
Tran told a harrowing tale of her immigration to the U.S. in 1986.
“After 1975, the North take over the South. Life was different.” she said. “I came with my younger brother by boat. I’m a boat person. I escaped my country. My parents had to pay somebody to take me, but if they saw us escape, they would take us to the jail.
“I live on the boat three days in the Pacific Ocean. There were 49 people on the boat,” she said. “Fourth day we throw up because the water is rocky, and then a big ship came and take us to a small island, and we stayed there for two weeks, and then they bring us to Indonesia to a refugee camp. I stayed there for a year. They give us food once a week, like egg, rice, flour, sardines. It was OK. From Indonesia we come here.”
Tran, who was 16 at the time, arrived in the United States through Houston, Texas, where she lived with relatives there and in California.
She finds her recipes on YouTube, she said. “I cook, but don’t write it down. I look mentally with my eyes.”
Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.
THIT KHO (VIETNAMESE BRAISED PORK BELLY)
This reciped for Thit Kho comes from Becca Du who writes and shares recipes on her site, www.cooking-therapy.com
Pork belly is traditional, but you can substitute leaner cuts such as pork shoulder or pork butt. For a thicker sauce, add 1/4 teaspoon corn starch mixed with 1 teaspoon water, and cook until thickened.
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
- 1 pound pork belly
- 4 large eggs, hard-boiled and shelled
- 1 shallot, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- Vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 cup coconut water
- Green onions, sliced, for garnish
Method:
1. Cut pork belly into 1-inch chunks. Bring 2 quarts water to a boil; add pork belly chunks. Boil 2-4 minutes to clean pork belly. Drain pork belly and rinse.
2. Add shallots, garlic, and a little oil to a medium pot. Cook for 1-2 minutes until the shallots and garlic are shiny. Add brown sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, and coconut water. Stir and bring to a boil. Return pork belly to pot and lower heat to a simmer. If the liquid doesn’t fully cover pork belly, add more coconut water until it just covers meat. Simmer with pan slightly uncovered for 30 minutes.
3. After 30 minutes, add hard-boiled eggs. Simmer for another 30 minutes with pan slightly uncovered. If liquid does not completely cover eggs, turn eggs over after 15 minutes.
4. Serve over rice garnished with green onions.
