To put it simply, all the monasteries are vegetarian, and you can't put onions, onions, leeks and garlic, which have unpleasant smells, and you can't put eggs. The oil used is also vegetable oil, and you can't use lard. Of course, you should put salt.

The rice in the monastery is really fragrant, which makes me miss the steamed bread I converted to Master. It's so sweet, hehe, it's far away .. There will be eight stations today, each with ten people, eight dishes and one soup. I also went to Zhaitang for dinner after I divided the dishes. Some lay people stay in the kitchen and sit at the table with the master to show their special status. This is actually very stupid. Because although there is a big fan in the kitchen, it is still hot, and the Zhaitang is only covered without walls. There are waves of mountain breeze blowing without turning on the fan, which is so cool.

Today's soup is lotus seed, winter melon, dangshen and jujube soup. It's been boiled for several hours, and it's sweet and delicious, and it's also very beneficial to relieve summer heat and remove dampness. In terms of dishes, there are fried Chinese cabbage, fried cucumber, fried bitter gourd, shredded potato, stewed pumpkin, stewed bean curd, fried tomato strips and arhat Zhai.

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 in length into the fried pulp, roll them and put them in a pot for about ten minutes. It tastes crisp and fragrant. Besides, Luohanzhai is also very delicious. This is almost the most expensive dish in the temple, which is fried after soaking in dry goods such as mushrooms, lily flowers, 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 I cooked at home are not so delicious. Then I thought, oh, maybe it's the fire. Because all the temples use firewood for cooking. The food was delicious, so I went to the kitchen to fill a bowl of silver needle powder after eating a bowl of rice. This kind of flour is made by mixing rice flour and glutinous rice flour. The length of the two tips is about ten centimeters, and the diameter is almost the same as that of ordinary beans. Stir-fried with shredded green pepper and bean sprouts is very delicious.

China's folk vegetarian customs existed as early as the pre-Qin period. Buddhism was introduced into China, and Han monks "fasted and became vegetarian", and vegetarian cooking in monasteries developed, which was unique in people's diet and life and promoted the folk vegetarian customs.

Monks in monasteries usually have pickles and pickled radishes for porridge in the early morning, eat yellow rice and braised dishes for lunch, and have vegetarian meals and fragrant japonica rice on "Buddha Happy Day" (a Buddhist festival). The kitchen of the temple, called Zhai Kitchen and Xiang Ji Kitchen, not only takes care of the meals of monks, but also has a lot of benefactors and pilgrims to solve for the monks coming from all over the country. The temple has to provide them with tea and meals, which makes the vegetarian cooking of Zhai Kitchen more and more exquisite.

When I was in Liang Wudi, there was a monk chef in Nanjing Jianye Temple, who was skilled in cooking vegetarian dishes. "A melon can cook dozens of dishes, and a dish can change ten flavors." The fried spring rolls, scalded spring buds, roasted spring mushrooms and white lotus soup (sweets) in Wuzu Temple in Meishan, Hubei Province in the Tang Dynasty were beautifully made and were the delicacies of Buddhist children. Spring rolls in Wuzu Temple are made of wild vegetables on the temple hill, with dried bean curd, fermented soybean juice, gluten foam and various seasonings, and fried with green leaves or oil bags for external use.

from the song and yuan dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, vegetarian dishes in monasteries have been able to match vegetarian dishes with high positions. Many dishes, such as vegetarian chicken, vegetarian duck, vegetarian fish, vegetarian ham, etc., are not only similar to vegetarian dishes, but also slightly similar in taste. Temple chefs can make "pork" from raw materials such as white radish or eggplant with hair noodles, cook "fried fish" from bean products and yam mud, imitate "pigeon egg" from mung bean powder mixed with water, and imitate "crab powder" from gourd and potato. The chef's ingenious thinking and skills meet people's needs for food taste. Of course, in Buddhism, there are also people who oppose the names of vegetarian dishes, thinking that this is a "deliberate killing", so they call vegetarian fish "ruyi" and vegetarian sausages "agate rolls".

One of the famous vegetarian dishes in the temple, "Luohanzhai", is made of 18 kinds of raw materials, which means devotion to the eighteen arhats of Buddhism. Luohan cuisine in Shanghai Jade Buddha Temple is made of mushroom, Tricholoma, Lentinus edodes, fresh ground mushroom, straw mushroom, Nostoc flagelliforme, ginkgo, vegetarian chicken, vegetarian sausage, potato, carrot, Sichuan bamboo shoot, winter bamboo shoot, bamboo shoot tip, oil gluten, auricularia auricula and day lily with seasoning. It is rich in appearance and fresh to eat, which can be comparable to the taste of chicken, duck and fish. In addition, "Shredded eel with bamboo shoots" in daming temple, Yangzhou (the main ingredient is mushrooms) and "Huiguo Bacon" in Ciyun Temple, Chongqing (the main ingredient is gluten) are all famous vegetarian dishes, whose shape, color, taste and texture can be confused.

Temple vegetarian dishes are very popular among the people. The assorted tofu soup (also called "Wensi tofu") that Jiangsu people liked to eat in Ming and Qing Dynasties was originally made by Wensi monk in Tianning Temple. Yuan Mei, a gourmet in Qing Dynasty, praised pickled radish and pickled kohlrabi, which were originally porridge dishes of monks in Cheng 'en Temple. The assorted vegetarian dishes in the temple have already become the home cooking of Jiangnan people.