Red Fermented Bean Curd Buddha’s Delight Luohan Zhai 南乳炆齋

This vegetarian Red Fermented Bean Curd Buddha’s Delight Luohan Zhai 南乳炆齋 is a classic traditional Chinese New Year’s dish, generally to be served up to your hungry family on the first day of the new year.  We have posted previously on the Buddha’s Delight 羅漢齋, a more common version of this dish, also made and served for the first day of the new year.  

This particular version is a Cantonese twist starring the delectable fermented red bean curd 南乳, transforming an already tasty vegetable dish into something truly unique and, to me and my family’s taste buds, clearly the taste winner.

Sweet Cow Ear Cookies 甜牛耳朵餅

As promised, here is my sweet version of that festive Chinese New Year treat, the Cow Ear Cookie. In our last post we discussed the recipe for the traditional Chinese Cow Ear Cookie 牛耳朵餅,  a savory cookie flavored with the exotic flavors of the Chinese red fermented bean curd.  I found the flavors of the red fermented bean curd in a cookie so intriguing that I decided to try to make a sweet version of the same.  

Here is the result, my version of a Sweet Cow Ear Cookie 甜牛耳朵餅, a buttery sweet pinwheel cookie swirled through with the distinct umami flavors of the Chinese red fermented bean curd.  Psst...tell you a secret...I think we like these sweet cookies even better than the traditional savory ones!!

Cow Ear Cookies 牛耳朵餅

This traditional Chinese New Year cookie that has a really good name.  An animal part name...a name that only the Chinese could think of, loving as they so do to name things in a strange ways.  Personally I could think of many other names for a cookie like this that would be as appropriate and definitely more pleasing to the ear (and the stomach!)  

Nevertheless the aptly named but strange sounding Cow Ear Cookie 牛耳朵 is a pleasingly pinwheel patterned deliciously savory cookie flavored and colored with the interesting and rather exotic flavor of the Chinese red fermented bean curd 紅腐乳.