Deep Fried Jingle Bells

Deep Fried Jingle Bells is called Ganzha Xiangling in Chinese. "Ganzha" means deep fry, while "Xiangling" means jingling bells.

Legend has it that on its first appearance, Deep Fried Jingle Bells (Ganzha Xiangling) didn’t have the same name or look that it has now. There was a time when a traveler passing through Hangzhou ordered this dish in a local restaurant to go with his wine. Rather disappointedly, the man found the restaurant had just run out of a crucial ingredient needed to cook the dish — tofu skin. However, he wouldn’t let it go. When he was told that tofu skin was made in the Sixiang area, he jumped onto his horse and rushed straight to Sixiang to get tofu skin. Moved by the man’s passion for the dish, and inspired by his jingling horse bells, the cook elaborately shaped the food into horse bells to mark the occasion. That’s how Deep Fried Jingle Bells came into shape.