With a history of more than 1,800 years, dumpling (饺子) is a classic lucky food for Lunar New Year, and a traditional dish eaten on Chinese New Year’s Eve, widely popular in China, especially in Northern China.

Chinese dumplings can be made to form different shapes and each family has their preferred shape and method. The popular urban legend dictates that the more dumplings you eat during the New Year celebrations, the more money you can make in the New Year.

Dumplings generally consist of minced meat and finely-chopped vegetables filling wrapped in a thin and elastic dough skin. Popular fillings include minced pork, diced shrimp, fish, ground chicken, beef, and vegetables. They can be cooked by boiling, steaming, frying or baking.

• When folding dumplings there should be a good number of pleats. If you make the sealing edge too flat, it is thought to manifest poverty.
• A class common tradition is putting a white thread inside a dumpling, and the one who finds that dumpling is supposed to possess longevity. These days, people substitute items like thread for big chunks of diced ginger as the lucky surprise.
• Dumplings should be arranged in lines instead of circles, because circles of dumplings are supposed to mean one’s life will go round in circles, never going anywhere.