What's on the Chinese New Year table in India?

If there is one dish that unites the Hakka Chinese community across the world during the Lunar New Year (on 17 February this year), it is suan pan zi, or yam abacus beads. Shaped like the beads of the ancient counting tool, it symbolises wealth and prosperity. The recipe is straightforward: the yam is first steamed until tender and kneaded with tapioca flour to form a dough. It is then shaped like gnocchi, and tossed with shiitake and woodear mushrooms, chives, bean sprouts and soy sauce. “It is prepared by the Hakka people, especially those living in Malaysia and Singapore,” shares Kolkata-based chef Katherine Lim, a third generation Indian-Chinese known for popularising the dish in India through her pop-ups.

Food plays a central role in the Lunar New Year (also Chinese New Year) celebrations. The action begins in the kitchen, where families gather to make large batches of the quintessential bow-shaped sesame cookies called maafa (or ma-fah), while reunion meals call for elaborate spreads of steamed fish and roast chicken. In Kolkata’s Tiretta Bazaar and Tangra neighbourhoods, the dwindling Chinese community celebrate with dragon dance parades and visits to the local Chinese temple. Although many have moved away to study or work in other parts of the country and the world, there’s a growing pull to return home during this time of the year.

Lim’s grandfather, who initially migrated from China to Kolkata as a teen, moved to Lahore sometime in the 1920s to work in the shoe industry. After Partition, he made Amritsar his home. Lim was born there before the family decided to head back to Kolkata when she was 12. “Back in Amritsar, we’d make our own noodles and tofu, pickled mustard greens, and lap cheong or cured pork sausages. And for my mother, a visit to her maternal family in Kolkata, meant returning with 10 litre cans of soy sauce,” says Lim, who has cooked for several pop-ups at five-star hotels, apart from Mumbai’s Masque Lab, Glenburn Penthouse in Kolkata and Omo Cafe in Gurugram.

Lim remembers her family preparing a spread featuring 8-10 dishes, which included steamed whole fish and chicken with an assortment of toppings and sauces, fish ball soup and stewed pork to name a few. “Eight or 10 are whole numbers and signify abundance. As for serving something whole, it symbolises unity or feeling of wholeness in the family.” The food highlighted a part of their identity rooted in memory, yet flexible enough to adapt to change and the new homes they made wherever they settled. In Kolkata, they turned to local varieties of fish—bhetki for the steamed fish and chitol (Indian knifefish) for the fish balls.

For Bryan Li, co-founder of Wok88, a Chinese food delivery kitchen in Delhi, the festivities are anchored in memories of shared plates and kitchen banter. While the maafa and prawn crackers kept everyone busy, it was his grandmother’s cooking that made the day truly special. “Her Hakka prawn balls, steamed chicken and sesame balls are dishes no one could make them quite the way she did,” says the fourth generation Indian-Chinese, who grew up in Kolkata and Delhi, and enjoys cooking for his family on Chinese New Year. “Dishes like the steamed fish and lo-phe-yaan, which is made of steamed radish and pork balls are simple, nostalgic, and deeply tied to family memories.” He has carried some of them on to the menu at Wok88, including the prawn balls, which remains a quiet reminder of his Hakka heritage.

As Kolkata’s Chinatown ushers in the “Year of the Horse”, chef Peter Tseng recommends booking a meal at one of its many iconic restaurants for their festive specials. The IHM Kolkata graduate grew up on Bentinck Street, where his late grandfather ran a shoe shop, and traces his roots to the Guangdong province in China. Now based in Chennai as the culinary director of Pricol Gourmet, Tseng is travelling back home to Kolkata to be with his parents. “Get the steamed whole fish and Cantonese chow at Kafulok, the steamed chicken and golden fried prawns at Golden Joy, and the chilli roast pork at Ah Leung,” he says.