Auspicious, delicious Lunar New Year dragon dishes shaped by talented China social media users to bring good fortune
- Dragons mean fortune, prosperity, happiness, guarantee favourable year
- Chinese social media brims with limited edition dragon-shaped dishes
Dragons are revered in Chinese culture. The mythical creature is considered an auspicious symbol, bringing good luck, power, honour and success. As a result, depictions of it can be seen everywhere.
With the Year of the Dragon under way, mainland social media is brimming with ideas for creating limited edition dishes presented in the shape of the legend.
Recipes that represent fortune, prosperity and happiness are hugely popular, hopefully guaranteeing a favourable year ahead.
On the mainland social media platform Xiaohongshu, a person using the handle @xiaoxiangdemama, made a dragon dish with ingredients that included spinach, white sesame, sesame oil, soy sauce and salt.
With the cooked spinach, she created the shape of the legendary creature, and made its eyes with small pieces of cheese and some nori. Then she garnished it with clouds made from cheese slices to reflect the auspicious symbolism of dragons riding clouds.
Another person, @shangcha, made a fruit dragon using red wine, oranges, pears, lemonade, rock sugar, and preserved plums.
They arranged the sliced orange in the shape of the dragon’s body, shaped its head and horns with the pear that had been poached in red wine, and used a piece of chocolate for the eyeball placed on a head made out of plums.
Another, @niuxiaobodianziduo, designed a dragon using homemade dumplings, which have long been included in Chinese culture for celebrations, family reunions and to bring happiness.
Another inventive cook on social media, @mianshige, created a noodle dragon from strips of raw dough, using their hands and a pair of scissors to shape the body parts.
Many mainland social media users were captivated by the dragon-inspired dishes.
“That is fabulous. I want to try and make dragon food now,” one said.
“The dragon foods they make are brilliant, and they look delicious,” said another.
“How can they be so creative? They will be blessed by dragons,” someone else said.