
There are many ways to mark Lunar New Year – the beginning of a fresh start on the lunisolar calendar (which, in 2025, falls on 29 January) from clearing out your house to remove dust and bad luck (known as ‘chucheng’), to wearing and decorating your space in (lucky) red. The real highlight, however, is the food: Lunar New Year’s Eve (on Tuesday 28 January) family and friends come together for the reunion dinner – a feast to bring good luck and fortune.
So to mark the Year of the Wood Snake in the Chinese zodiac, we asked three of our favourite foodies, chefs and restaurateurs – Mambow’s Abby Lee, BAO’s Erchen Chang and Amy Poon of Poon’s London – to share three recipes to serve up for a celebratory feast...
The Crowd Pleaser: Abby Lee’s Kam Heong Mussels

At her east London restaurant Mambow, Abby Lee serves up her fresh take on Malaysian cuisine, inspired by the food she grew up eating during her childhood. What would she dish up for Lunar New Year? These Kam Heong mussels. “Kam Heong translates to ‘golden fragrance’, and this dish is truly its name, with the fragrance of curry leaves and curry powder and the deep umami flavours of soybean paste and dried shrimp,” she says. “It’s a real celebration dish, that can also be used with clams, prawns or crab. Get some jasmine rice ready to mop up all the sauce!”
Kam Heong Mussels

Serves 4
Ingredients
For The Prawn Floss:
50g dried shrimp (soak in warm water, covering shrimp completely, for 10 minutes before cooking)
25g vegetable oil
For The Kam Heong Paste:
250g banana shallot
45g garlic
25g ginger
5 red bird’s eye chilli
15g meat curry powder (Baba’s brand is most ideal)
For The Kam Heong Sauce:
45g oyster sauce
25g soybean paste
1.5 tsp light soy sauce
5g dark brown sugar
2 tsp black pepper
1kg mussels, cleaned and debearded
5 fresh curry leaf stalks, picked
Method
1. To make the prawn floss: after the shrimp has soaked, drain and reserve the water for cooking later. Pat them dry before blending until it reaches a fluffy consistency. Mix with the vegetable oil and cook in a pan on low heat, stirring regularly until lightly caramelised and dry. Spread onto a piece of kitchen roll, to catch any excess oil.
2. To make the Kam Heong paste: roughly chop all ingredients, before pulsing in a food processor, until reaching a chopped texture (rather than a smooth paste). Stir in curry powder at the end.
3. To make the Kam Heong sauce: whisk all ingredients in a bowl until well combined.
4. For the mussels, you’ll need a wok or wide saucepan – ensure you’ve got a lid or a plate ready to cover your pan later. Heat up 4 tbsp of oil to medium heat. Once ready, add the picked curry leaves (they take a second to pop).
5. Add the paste: keep stirring until the shallots look transparent and it smells fragrant, around 5-10 minutes.
6. Add the mussels and the sauce – really coat each mussel well. Then, pour over the reserved shrimp water and get the lid on the pan. Steam mussels for a few minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until they have all opened.
7. With a slotted spoon, add just the mussels onto your chosen platter. Now reduce the sauce until it coats a spoon lightly – I like to add an additional pinch of sugar at this point, too. Taste for seasoning, if you’d like more black pepper, sugar or salt.
8. Drizzle the sauce all over the mussels. Top with prawn floss all over and serve!
The Comfort Dish: Erchen Chang’s Dan Dan Noodles

Founder and creative director of BAO, Erchen Chang, regularly travels back to Asia to gain further inspiration for her Taiwanese eateries across London, all of which are going big for Lunar New Year, with a dedicated set menu (until 9 February). There’s also the limited-edition BAO& Friends pop-up spaces at Dover Street Market stores in London, Ginza and Singapore, featuring exclusive designer collaborations and merch (until 3 February). What would she make to celebrate with friends? A rich, steaming bowl of noodles. “When I was travelling around Chengdu, China, I tried so many different bowls of dan dan noodles,” says Erchen. “The balance of seasoning is crucial, so make sure you measure these to a T when making your own. I like to appreciate the oily residue and bits of fermented vegetables left at the end – finishing a bowl is the ultimate way to show my respect to those who’ve cooked it.”
Dan Dan Tofu Noodles

Serves 4
Ingredients
For the Dan Dan tofu:
250 ml cold-pressed rapeseed (canola) oil
1 x 200-g block firm tofu, crumbled into coarse 1cm pieces
2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely diced
2 tsp chilli powder
1½ tsp ground white pepper
1½ tsp caster (superfine) sugar
2½ tsp whole bean soy sauce
Pinch of salt
For the Dan Dan tofu dressing:
3 tsp mirin
8 tsp whole bean soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, grated
4 tbs fermented mustard greens
2 tsp Tung Choi Preserved Vegetable (you can find these in most Asian supermarkets)
4 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
8 tsp Sichuan chilli oil
400g plain wheat noodles (or use ready-made noodles)
4 generous handfuls of coriander (cilantro), finely sliced
Method
1. For the Dan Dan tofu, heat the oil in a frying pan (or skillet) over a medium heat. Add the tofu and ginger, then pan-fry for 2 minutes before adding the remaining ingredients. Cook gently for 10 minutes, allowing the tofu to soak up all the flavours and develop a tender, fluffy texture. Remove from the heat and set aside.
2. For the Dan Dan tofu dressing, preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2 and place 4 bowls in the oven to warm.
3. Put ¾ teaspoon mirin, 2 teaspoons soy sauce, grated ½ clove garlic, 1 tablespoon fermented mustard greens, ½ teaspoon preserved vegetable, 1 teaspoon Chinkiang vinegar and 2 teaspoons chilli oil, including some pulp, into each bowl. It’s important to measure into each warmed bowl rather than make a batch of dressing, because the flavour balance is key to this dish.
4. To assemble, cook the noodles in two batches. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil, add half the noodles, then give it a stir with chopsticks to separate the strands. Once the water comes to the boil again, cook for 1 minute and 10 seconds. (If the noodles aren’t freshly prepared, it may require longer cooking time. Have a test bite before straining.) Drain and immediately divide into 2 bowls by picking up half of the noodles with a pair of chopsticks. Gently lay the ends of the strands into the bowl and fold them over so the noodles are all uniformly sitting snug next to each other. Repeat for the second batch of noodles.
5. Top each bowl of noodles with 4 tablespoons of the Dan Dan tofu. Be sure to include the oil as it will give it extra flavour. Top each bowl with a generous handful of the coriander (cilantro). Mix the noodles thoroughly before eating.
The Sweet Treat: Amy Poon’s Chinese New Year Cookies

Amy Poon is the founder of Poon’s London – the Chinese heritage food brand, with a physical store in London’s Bermondsey as well as online (the chilli oil belongs in every condiments cupboard). “Chinese New Year is an incredibly special time for myself and my family,” says Amy, who is partnering with London’s Toklas Bakery for these special-edition cookies. “For me, these cookies are the embodiment of edible love. Traditionally, they symbolise coins which are an emblem of good fortune, and they are often gifted at Chinese New Year to bestow prosperity on the recipient.” They’re available to purchase at Toklas across the Lunar New Year period or, you can make them at home all year-round using Amy’s bespoke recipe...
Ingredients

220g unsalted butter, softened
200g caster sugar
Zest of 2 lemons
1 whole egg
150g ground almonds
220g plain flour
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2tsp salt
24 whole almonds
Method
1. Cream together butter and sugar until just combined.
2. Add the lemon zest and egg, then add all the dry ingredients – except for the whole almonds – and bring together.
3. Put the mix in the fridge for 30 minutes, then shape into spheres and flatten on a tray. Make sure they’re well-spaced out, then add a whole almond to the centre of each cookie.
4. Bake at 160 degrees celsius (fan oven), for 12-14 minutes. Allow to cool, then serve.
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