Seasonal Pantry: Dishes to bring in the New Year

While you’re sipping Champagne and slurping oysters on New Year’s Eve, your Greek counterparts may be slamming pomegranates on the ground in front of their homes, an annual tradition believed to inspire fertility and abundance in the coming year.

At midnight, while you’re kissing that stranger seated next to you at the bar, Italians are tossing things out their windows, anything from half-used bars of soap and old glasses to dishes, refrigerators and even couches, in a grand out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new gesture, after which they may head inside for big bowls of lentils and cotechino.

In Iceland, in advance of your all-night New Year’s revelries, you’d be eating fermented skate, a signature fish that is best described as quite fragrant, in an ammonia-filled way.

As the old year gives way to the new, we all look for foods that are talismans of good fortune. Anything green is equated with cash, anything round with coin. When it comes to meat, pork is popular because pigs use their snouts to root, moving forward as they do so. Chickens and turkeys, by comparison, root backwards and should not be eaten on the first day of a new year. Unless you are eating ozoni, a Japanese New Year’s soup that includes chicken breast, along with carrots, radishes, rice cake, shrimp, spinach and lemon zest.

Other foods are valued because of their cost and the underlying idea that whatever you do on New Year’s you will do all year, so why not eat pricey foods? Indulge in lobster to set the year off on the right track; lobster in cream sauce is another classic holiday dish in Italy.

Of all the regional and ethnic traditions in the United States, Hoppin’ John is probably the most familiar. Attend a New Year’s Eve Party hosted by someone from the south and you are liable to find a spoonful of black-eye peas, rice and greens being pushed into your mouth moments after midnight. Don’t resist, as those round peas and green greens promise good fortune.

If you miss out on properly greeting the New Year, don’t worry. Just wait until Feb. 8, when Lunar New Year begins. Make yourself some long noodles - they signify long life - and hide your knives so that they won’t cut your luck. Put your brooms away, too, so you don’t sweep out good luck. And have an orange, another symbol of wealth in the New Year.

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As you eat these noodles, you should slurp loudly to convey your pleasure, as is done in Japan. And do not cut the noodles or you risk cutting your luck or your life.

Chilled Soba Noodles with Ginger, Wasabi & Cilantro

Serves 6 to 8

1 small (4-inches square) piece of kelp (konbu), wiped clean

? cup dried bonito flakes

1 pound soba noodles, cooked and chilled (see Note below)

3 tablespoons wasabi powder

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons mirin (sweetened rice wine)

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

6 scallions, trimmed and cut into thin rounds

½ cup, lightly packed, fresh cilantro leaves

Put the konbu into a medium saucepan, add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Use tongs to transfer the kelp to absorbent paper; pat it dry and reserve it to use again. Add the bonito flakes, stir and remove from the heat. When the bonito flakes have fallen to the bottom of the pan - it will take about 1 minute - strain the liquid through a fine strainer or through cheesecloth. Discard the bonita flakes and chill the broth.

Put the wasabi powder into a small bowl, add 4 tablespoons of water, stir until smooth and set aside.

When the broth is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator and stir in the soy sauce, mirin and ginger. Divide it among individual dippings bowls.

Set a spoonful of wasabi on individual plates and sprinkle scallions next to the wasabi. Mound the noodles nearby and scatter cilantro leaves over everything.

Serve right away.

To eat, guests stir wasabi and scallions into the dipping sauce, wind noodles on chopsticks or a fork, and swirl them in the sauce.

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Cotechino is a fat Italian pork sausage that is enjoyed widely in Italy (from Rome north) to help ensure good luck in the new year. The rounds of sliced sausage resemble coins, as do the little lentils, which have been a traditional New Year’s food since Roman times. Locally, Franco Dunn’s One World Sausage has an outstanding cotechino, available at farmers markets in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, at Wells Fargo Center.

Lentils with Cotechino

Serves 6 to 8

1 pound lentils, rinsed twice and picked over for rocks and other legumes

2 bay leaves

1-2 cotechino

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups beef, duck or chicken stock

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more as needed

1/2 small yellow onion, cut into small dice

1 small carrot, peeled and cut into small dice

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons double-concentrated tomato paste

- Kosher salt

- Black pepper in a mill

10-12 fresh sage leaves, minced

- Sage leaves, for garnish

Put the lentils and bay leaves into a large saucepan, add cold water to cover them and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer gently until almost tender, about 45 to 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, use a fork to prick the cotechino in several places. Set it in a saucepan or deep sauté pan, add the wine and stock and, if needed, enough water to cover the sausage. Slowly bring to a boil and simmer gently until cooked through, about 45 minutes.

While the lentils and sausage cook, pour the olive oil into a deep sauté pan set over medium heat, add the onion and carrot and sauté gently until soft and fragrant, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté 2 minutes more; do not let the garlic brown. Stir in the tomato paste, season with salt and pepper an remove from the heat.

Drain the lentils, reserving about a cup of the cooking liquid. Add the lentils to the pan with the sautéed aromatics, stir, and add the cooking liquid, along with 3 or 4 ladles of the stock. Simmer very gently for about 10 minutes, until the lentils are fully tender. Taste and correct for salt and pepper. Thin with more stock as needed to achieve a thick but soup-like consistency. (Reserve unused stock for making soup or risotto.)

Use tongs to transfer the cotechino to a clean work surface; let cool briefly. Remove the strings and cut the sausage into 3/8-inch thick rounds.

To serve, ladle lentils into soup plates, add several slices of sausage, scatter sage on top, garnish with a sage leaf and enjoy right away.

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Not so long ago, hog jowls were uncommon in Sonoma County, but they are now readily available at such markets as the Sonoma County Meat Company.

Black-Eye Peas and Hog Jowl with Kale

Serves 8 to 10

1 pound hog jowl or ham hock

2 pounds dried black-eyed peas, sorted, rinsed and soaked in water for 2 to 3 hours

1 large onion, peeled and quartered

1 dried red chile

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 large bunch Lacinato kale, heavy stems discarded, cut into 1-inch wide crosswise strips

- Kosher salt

- Black pepper in a mill

6 cups hot cooked white rice (from 2 cups raw rice)

- Tabasco sauce or cider vinegar

Put the hog jowl or ham hock in a large soup pot, add enough water to cover it, bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, until the meat is completely tender. Drain the peas and add them to the hog jowl, along with the onion, chile and sugar. Simmer over low heat until the peas are completely tender, about 1 hour, and the onion has fallen apart.

When the beans have been cooking for about 45 minutes, stir in the kale and continue to cook until the peas and the kale are tender.

Remove the hog jowl or ham hock, chop it coarsely, and stir it back into the beans.

Taste, correct for salt and add several turns of black pepper.

Serve over rice, and pass the Tabasco sauce or cider vinegar alongside.

Michele Anna Jordan is author of the new “Good Cook’s” series. Email her at michele@saladdresser.com or visit her blog at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.