Celebrating Chinese New Year

Incorporate culturally-inspired meals and fun activities for a great celebration

One of the most popular celebrations at early learning settings across Aotearoa is the Chinese New Year

Celebrating Chinese New Year at your early learning setting or school is a great opportunity to introduce healthy, cultural foods. It also helps to create a multicultural environment which inspires a sense of belonging for all children and families.   

For those  children who may not be exposed to certain traditional meals and ingredients, this is a great opportunity to introduce new foods and flavours they may not get to experience otherwise. Exposure to new foods can enable taste buds to further develop through sharpening their senses of taste and smell. 

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In 2019, Chinese New Year is on February 5th and this is the Year of the Pig

For this year’s recipe we've chosen our Ginger Beef & Broccoli Noodles (see below) as a suggestion to go with your Chinese New Year celebration. This is a delicious dish, with subtle hints of garlic, ginger and soy, which will have the kids licking their bowls! 

Some cool ideas for promoting healthy eating during your Chinese New Year celebration include:

• Gather all classrooms outdoors and prepare Ginger Beef & Broccoli Noodles for everyone to share: Use portable electric frying pans and prepare as much as you can in advance (i.e. chopping the vegetables, measuring the ingredients and parboiling the noodles) to make the task a lot easier to achieve

• Bring a basket of unusual vegetables and fruit used in Chinese cooking for the children to experience: Bitter melon, Chinese cabbage, bok choi, garlic chives, ginger and lychees are all examples of produce readily available from Asian greengrocers

• Make dumplings with the children: go for boiled or steamed rather than fried, as it’s less time-consuming and much healthier

• Share any recipes you've prepared for your celebration with the parents: an easy way to encourage families to try nutritious meals at home

• Ask families to contribute ideas or recipes for your celebration and invite them to join you on the day :)

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​Ginger Beef and Broccoli Noodles

Recipe by Clean Plate

Serves 10 to 12 pre-schoolers

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp cooking oil

• 1 tsp garlic, crushed

• 1 tsp ground ginger (or 1 tsp freshly grated)

• 1 bunch spring onion, thinly sliced

• 1 carrot, small dice

• 400g beef mince

• ½ red capsicum, small dice

• ½ yellow capsicum, small dice

• ½ broccoli cut in florets, and each floret cut into mini florets and stalks finely sliced

• ¼ cup soy sauce

• 1 ½ cups water

• 3 tsp cornflour

• 250g flat rice or egg noodles, broken into smaller pieces 

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Method:

1. Heat half the cooking oil in a wok or large frying pan and brown the mince, breaking further all the big lumps, until it starts to release water. Add the spring onion, garlic and ginger and continue to cook for another minute or two.

2. Add the diced carrots and capsicums and stir-fry for 5 minutes or until they start to soften. Now add the broccoli florets and stalks and stir-fry for a further 3 to 5 minutes.

3. Add the soy sauce and stir. Add enough water to barely cover the mince and bring to the boil.

4. Dissolve the cornflour in a little cold water, lower down the heat to a simmer, and added it to the mince, stirring as you do, to avoid lumps. Continue stirring until the sauce has thickened slightly. If the sauce is still too watery, add another teaspoon of cornflour (dissolved in water) at a time, until reaching the desired consistency.

5. Check the seasoning and reserve.

6. Meanwhile, cook the flat rice or egg noodles, following the packet instructions. Drain the noodles, cut noodles further if still too long for the children to eat easily. (If pre-cooking noodles in advance, place them in a colander and refresh under cold running water, to avoid sticking together).

7. Enjoy!

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Printable recipe to add to your CP recipe folder:

Have a lovely Chinese New Year Celebration from Clean Plate!