Buddha’s Delight is a well-known chinese vegetarian dish, and there are several versions. The version that I wanted to share is a special homemade edition, cooked by my late father on the first day of Chinese New Year. The unique ingredient that set his dish apart is, adding fermented red beancurd. There is also a special meaning behind this dish, and it had become my family’s tradition to eat it over the Chinese New Year period.

And for this reason, I called it Braised Vegetables with Red Fermented Beancurd. Although this dish seemed simple, it requires quite a few ingredients. They include a variety of vegetables, a few types of mushrooms and of course the red fermented beancurd. This may be a typical Cantonese way to make this dish, but the true magic lies in how it can bring out and enhance the flavours and fragrance of the mushrooms and vegetables, making this dish an extremely appetising one! My late father only cooked it on the first day of Chinese New Year, and I would say it has a history of 60 years!

He would cook a big pot, and the two of us would be enjoying it over a few days. He wanted to only eat vegetarian food on the first day of Chinese New Year, as it is the most important Chinese festival in the year, and he did not want to take any lives away, observing the act of protecting lives on this big day. This became a family tradition, for him and now for me.