Lunar New Year is approaching 😃 Wish everyone the very best
in the Year of Ox! Part of the Chinese
New Year is to enjoy dinner together with families. Traditionally the dishes have meat, but vegetarian cuisine can
be just as yummy as non-vegetarian dishes as long as good-quality ingredients
and tasty sauces are used.
The first time I saw pictures of well-presented Chinese New
Year vegetarian meal was from Leezen Magazine few years ago (Unknown (leezen.com.tw). I was inspired by the pictures,
they looked so delicious. Why not just do something special this year? Eat
veggie to save animal lives and save the earth!
Don't know how to make veggie meal! No worries, let's look at Leezen pictures of each dish to get some creative ideas.
The first dish is an appetizer, Rainbow Salad 千紅萬紫蔬菜沙拉!
【主食】千紅萬紫蔬菜沙拉 | 沙拉 | 蔬食食譜 | 天天里仁 每一天更安心的選擇 (leezen.com.tw)
It contains vine lettuce, red and yellow peppers, apple, kiwi,
small tomatoes, small cucumber ,bamboo shoots, dried kelp buds, pleurotus
eryngii, mushrooms and camellia seed oil.
I remember the dried kelp buds and camellia seed oil can be found
in Yes Natural Goods store since it sells Leezen products (www.yesnaturalgoods.com). Although they are a bit pricy, I like the fact that all Leezen products are vegetarian, natural , no preservatives, and non GMO. Leezen helps the local farmers by cooperating with them to manufacture
organic and pesticide free products in order to protect our environment, ecosystem and save the animals.
Of course there should be some salad dressing. What flavour do you
like? For me, I like sesame or Hakka orange sauce.
Now I am thinking of some other ideas ... how about add some basils to the salad to enhance the aroma. For those who don't like kiwi, it can be substituted with dragon fruit 😃
The picture also shows some nice side dishes -珍饌馨意福氣拼盤. With Google Translate, it becomes Treasure Delicacy Blessing Platter 😊
Basically the first bowl contains dried tofu with shredded cucumber in Chili pepper sauce. The second bowl has golden jujube with pineapple jam. The third bowl has pine nut and water chestnut with diced pepper and camellia seed oil pine nut paste. Oops ... no information found for the other two side dishes ... I guess marinated red carrot or yam (whatever it looks like). The other one can be white carrot with pea in cold noodle sauce 😏
Here comes my favourite dish - Tang Yuan with Longan and White Fungus 😍
As the name of the sweet soup, it contains tang yuan (plain glutinous rice balls and glutinous rice balls with sesame paste), longan fruit and white fungus. lotus seeds, red dates and cane sugar are added to the soup too!
This one should be a fun to make! All the ingredients can be found in Yes Natural Goods store 😊
Finally comes the main dishes - start with Vegetarian Steak with Sweet Peppers
Good to enjoy a warm dish during winter :) It looks like vegetarian fish to me but it contains vegetarian steak 素排, lotus root powder 蓮藕粉, vegetable broth, some green/yellow/red peppers, golden needles 金針 , silver sprouts with vegetarian oyster sauce 素蠔油, black vinegar and a bit of rice vinegar plus mirin seasoning.
For me, I would also put some coriander (芫茜/ Chinese parsley) and white sesame on top to enhance the flavor.
The second main dish is Casserole Stewed Golden Tofu Balls.
It makes me hungry now by looking at the tasty tofu balls! Besides tofu balls, it has wild vegetable balls in vegetable broth, baby Chinese cabbage, green bean starch noodles, lotus root powder, minced ginger, diced eryngii mushrooms 杏鮑菇, diced red and yellow peppers mixed in miso chili sauce, vegetarian oyster sauce, mirin, soy sauce, black vinegar and sesame oil.
Now I think such a nice meal can be prepared for other occasions - birthday, housewarming party once life is back to normal. Again, for me I will add coriander. It should always be flexible, can use tofu balls or vegan imitation meat balls or mushroom balls. I wonder how it will taste if I use lemongrass tom yum sauce to replace miso chili sauce? Thai style vegetarian dish 🌴
The last main dish has my favourite ingredients! Bamboo fungus and Chinese mushrooms!!! This dish is called Bamboo Fungus Chinese Mustard Vegetable Ball Soup.
I remember the bamboo fungus and Chinese mushroom soup that I had before was very tasty. They are a perfect match. It's exciting to see these ingredients here.
Also bamboo fungus, which symbolizes the rise of each step, is matched with the seasonal mustard greens in winter, bursting out sincere blessings of creativity and health.
The soup contains Chinese mustard, peeled and shredded ginger, sea salt, camellia seed oil, vegetable broth, bamboo fungus (soaked in water and cut into 2 sections), dried shiitake mushrooms 乾香菇(soaked in water), hericium mushrooms 猴頭菇, vegetable stuffing balls and ginkgo.
I hope you are impressed with the vegetarian cuisine. The dishes are always flexible and changeable with substitute ingredients. Have a healthy and peaceful New Year! 祝大家新年平安快樂、身心健康！
