The food in the temple is really delicious, which makes me miss the steamed bread I converted to Master. So sweet, hehe, so far away.
After finishing my homework, I saw that the dishes in the kitchen were ready, but only one person was sharing them, so I went to help. There will be eight stops today, each with ten people, eight dishes and one soup. After dividing the dishes, I went to eat in Zhaitang. In order to show their special status, some laymen will stay in the kitchen and share the dining table with their masters. This is actually very stupid. Because although there is a big fan in the kitchen, it is still hot, and the zhaitang is only built without walls. Without turning on the fan, there will be a gust of mountain wind blowing, which is so cool.
Today's soup is lotus seed, wax gourd, dangshen and jujube soup. It's been cooked for hours. It's sweet and delicious, and it's also good for cooling off heat and removing dampness. In terms of dishes, there are fried Chinese cabbage, fried cucumber, fried bitter gourd, shredded potato, stewed pumpkin, stewed tofu, fried tomato strips and Luohanzhai.
I like fried eggplant very much. Its production is also very simple, that is, open the fried pulp (flour and salt, monosodium glutamate), put the eggplant segments cut into three or four centimeters into the fried pulp, roll them up and cook them in a pot for about ten minutes. It tastes crisp and fragrant. Besides, Luohanzhai is also delicious. This is almost the most expensive dish in the temple, which is fried after soaking in dry goods such as mushrooms, lilies, tremella and dried bamboo shoots. Of course, you need more oil because this dish is very oily.
I like eating in the temple very much. I don't know why the vegetarian dishes cooked at home are not so delicious. Then I thought, oh, maybe it's fire. Because all temples cook with firewood. The food was delicious. After eating a bowl of rice, I went to the kitchen and filled a bowl of silver needle powder. This kind of flour is a mixture of rice flour and glutinous rice flour. The length of the two tips is about ten centimeters, and the diameter is similar to that of ordinary beans. Stir-fried with shredded green pepper and bean sprouts is delicious.
The folk vegetarian custom in China dates back to the pre-Qin period. When Buddhism was introduced into China, Han monks "fasted and became vegetarian". Temple vegetarian cooking has developed, which is unique in people's diet and promotes the folk vegetarian custom.
Monks in the temple usually eat pickles and pickled radishes as porridge in the morning, yellow rice and stewed vegetables at noon, vegetarian meals and fragrant japonica rice on the "Buddha's Birthday Festival" (a Buddhist festival). The kitchen of the temple, called Zhai Kitchen and Kitchen, not only takes care of the meals of monks, but also has many benefactors and pilgrims to solve the problems for monks who come from all over the country. The temple also provides them with tea and meals, which makes Zhai's vegetarian cooking more and more exquisite.
In Liang Wudi, there is a monk chef in Nanjing Jianye Temple, who is good at cooking vegetarian food. "A melon can cook dozens of dishes, and a dish can be changed into ten flavors." . The fried spring rolls, scalded spring buds, roasted spring mushrooms and white lotus soup (sweets) of Wuzu Temple in Meishan, Hubei Province in the Tang Dynasty were beautifully made and were delicacies for Buddhist children. Spring rolls in Wuzu Temple are made of wild vegetables on the temple hill, with dried bean curd, fermented soybean, gluten foam and various seasonings, and fried with green leaves or oil for external use.
From Song and Yuan Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties, vegetarian dishes in monasteries can be matched with high-quality vegetarian dishes. Many dishes, such as vegetarian chicken, duck, fish and ham. Not only similar to vegetarian dishes, but also slightly similar in taste. Temple chefs can make "pork" with white radish or eggplant, "fried fish" with bean products and yam mud, "pigeon eggs" with mung bean powder and water, and "crab powder" with gourds and potatoes. The chef's ingenious thinking and skills meet people's demand for food taste. Of course, in Buddhism, some people object to the name of vegetarian dishes, thinking that it is "intentional killing", so they call vegetarian fish "Ruyi" and vegetarian sausage "Agate Roll".
One of the famous vegetarian dishes in the temple, "Luohanzhai", is made of eighteen kinds of raw materials, which means piety to the eighteen arhats of Buddhism. Luohan cuisine in Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple is made of mushrooms, Tricholoma, mushrooms, freshly ground mushrooms, straw mushrooms, Nostoc flagelliforme, Ginkgo biloba, vegetarian chicken, vegetarian sausage, potatoes, carrots, Sichuan bamboo shoots, winter bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots, oil gluten, auricularia auricula and day lily with seasonings. Rich in appearance, fresh to eat, comparable to the taste of chicken, duck and fish. In addition, the "shredded bamboo shoots and eel" in daming temple, Yangzhou (the main ingredient is mushrooms) and the "Huiguo bacon" in Ciyun Temple, Chongqing (the main ingredient is gluten) are all famous vegetarian dishes, and their shape, color, taste and quality can be confused.
Temple vegetarian dishes are very popular among the people. The assorted tofu soup (also called "Si Wen Tofu") that Jiangsu people liked to eat in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was originally made by Si Wen monk of Tianning Temple. Yuan Meizan, a gourmet in Qing Dynasty, pickled radish and pickled kohlrabi were originally porridge dishes of monks in Cheng 'en Temple. The assorted vegetarian dishes in the temple have long been the home cooking of Jiangnan people.