It took me a while but I finally realized that some of the Jews I know typically eat Chinese food on Christmas. I was pulled into the Chinese food on Christmas tradition last year, but only realized it was a “thing” a few months ago when I saw the below sign posted on Facebook:

As a Kosher-keeping girl living in Dallas, there’s not a snowball’s chance in you know where that I’m going to find local Kosher Chinese food. And by the time I decided to host the “traditional” Chinese food dinner, it was way too late to order said food from a Kosher Chinese restaurant elsewhere. So …..

I decided to make my own food. The funny thing is that there just aren’t that many recipes out there for Kosher Chinese food so I had to wing-it a bit.

Here’s the menu for our Christmas eve festitives. I’ll try to get the recipes posted over the next few weeks so everyone can have them in time for next year’s Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas celebration:

• Hot and Sour Soup
• Egg drop Soup (Made by our cousin)
• Dumplings (or Pot Stickers) with dipping sauce, pictured above pre-cooked
• Chinese cole slaw salad (made by my Mother in law)
• Beef and Brocolli Lo Mein
• Sweet and Sour Sesame Chicken
• Tofu Fried Rice (recipe is for chicken but I used firm Tofu chopped into small cubes this time).
• Rugelach and something with pastry sheets and cream (Made by my cousin and both delicious)

For the Dumplings, I started with a recipe from a cookbook I’ve had for years: The Dumpling Cookbook by Maria Polushkin. I used the Fried Pork Dumplings recipe on page 68 and switched out the pork for ground turkey.

I’ll post the recipe in a few days but if you are into dumplings, wontons and such, you should order this cookbook. The food is not Kosher but there are lots of very good, Jewish-like recipes that can be made Kosher with just a few switches.

What’s your Christmas eating tradition? Do you have Chinese food or something else?

Happy Kosher Chinese Treif cooking!