As a foodie, in addition to visiting my elderly parents when I go home during the Chinese New Year, I also have to eat a big meal during the New Year's Eve dinner.

The feeling of looking forward to going home is always exciting, just like looking forward to summer vacation or winter vacation when studying.

Every time I go home to celebrate the New Year, my parents always kill chickens and ducks to celebrate, which makes me feel even happier in a foreign land.

Just like fallen leaves returning to their roots, no matter whether they have money or not, they have to go home every year to celebrate the New Year, even if it is just to see their parents and taste home-cooked food.

Here are 4 must-have home-cooked dishes for New Year’s Eve dinner. They are the ones I look forward to and want to eat the most.

The first home-cooked dish is braised chicken with mushrooms.

It is best to use wild shiitake mushrooms in the mountains to make this dish. Although these shiitake mushrooms are thin and small in quantity, they are very sweet and more nutritious than artificially grown shiitake mushrooms.

Stew it with mushrooms and native chicken. Just add some ginger, chili, and salt to make it delicious.

Chicken soup in particular is very nourishing to the body. During our New Year’s Eve dinner, everyone would drink half a bowl of chicken soup before eating.

The second home-cooked dish is steamed grass carp.

Grass carp and silver carp are common freshwater fish in daily life, with sweet and tender taste.

In rural areas of Hunan, we cook steamed grass carp every year for New Year’s Eve dinner, which means having more than enough every year.

The steaming method is very simple and can retain the most nutrients of grass carp.

The third home-cooked dish is fried bacon with winter bamboo shoots.

My hometown is in the countryside, where every household has a bamboo forest. Whenever it is the season for winter bamboo shoots, everyone will go up the mountain to dig winter bamboo shoots.

Stir-fried winter bamboo shoots with bacon is a rare delicacy. Usually when guests come to the house, they will make this delicacy to entertain them. Sometimes it is made into stir-fried winter bamboo shoots with pickled cabbage. It is equally delicious and appetizing with rice.