Wikibooks

Chinese cuisine/Cantonese cuisine/Buddha's delight

Template:Chinese Buddha's delight, often transliterated as Luóhàn zhāi, lo han jai, or lo hon jai, is a vegetarian dish well known in Chinese and Buddhist cuisine. It is sometimes also called Luóhàn cài (Template:Zh).

The dish is traditionally enjoyed by Buddhist monks who are vegetarians, but it has also grown in popularity throughout the world as a common dish available as a vegetarian option in Chinese restaurants. The dish consists of various vegetables and other vegetarian ingredients (sometimes with the addition of seafood or eggs), which are cooked in soy sauce-based liquid with other seasonings until tender. The specific ingredients used vary greatly both inside and outside Asia.

Tradition edit

As suggested by its name, it is a dish traditionally enjoyed by Buddhists, but it has also grown in popularity throughout the world as a common dish available in Chinese restaurants (though often not including all of the ingredients) as a vegetarian option. It is traditionally served in Chinese households on the first day of the Chinese New Year, stemming from the old Buddhist practice that one should maintain a vegetarian diet in the first five days of the new year, as a form of self-purification. Some of the rarer ingredients, such as fat choy and arrowhead, are generally only eaten at this time of year.

Ingredients edit

The following is a list of ingredients often used in Buddha's delight, each of which, according to Chinese tradition, is ascribed a particular auspicious significance. As the dish varies from chef to chef and family to family, not every ingredient is always used in every version of the dish.

Main ingredients edit

Commonly used main ingredients edit

Less commonly used main ingredients edit

Seasonings edit

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i "Honolulu Star-Bulletin Features". Archives.starbulletin.com. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Lin, Florence (1976). Florence Lin's Chinese Vegetarian Cookbook. Shambhala. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-87773-252-5. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  3. ↑ a b c d Young, Grace (5 May 1999). The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing. Simon & Schuster. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-684-84739-9. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  4. ↑ a b "The Ginkgo Pages Forum - Blog: Jai a delight in the Chinese new year". Ginkgopages.blogspot.com. 2006-01-26. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
  5. ↑ a b c Hsiung, Deh-Ta; Simonds, Nina (1 June 2005). Food of China. Murdoch Books. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-74045-463-6. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  6. ↑ "Buddha's Delight Recipe". Taste.com.au. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
  7. ↑ a b c Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named archive1
  8. ↑ a b Hsiung, Deh-Ta (19 February 2002). The Chinese Kitchen: A Book of Essential Ingredients with Over 200 Easy and Authentic Recipes. St. Martin's Press. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-312-28894-5. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f Hu, Shiu-Ying (2005). Food Plants of China. Chinese University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-962-996-229-6. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  10. ↑ "Buddha's Delight Recipe at". Epicurious.com. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Chinese_cuisine/Cantonese_cuisine/Buddha%27s_delight&oldid=3389442"