Buuz is one of the popular cuisines cooked on days of the Lunar New Year or the Tsagaan Sar named by Mongolians. Families start preparing the buuz or bansh in approaching of the Tsagaan Sar. Bansh is another type of the cuisine which is equivalent to dumpling.
Mongolians usually prepare one thousand buuz or more depending on the number of guests to visit, and freeze them for reserving. The reserved cuisine is steamed and offered to guests during the Lunar New Year.
Buuz is a type of Mongolian national food. The steamed dumpling is filled with minced mutton, or beef meat. The meat is flavoured with onion or garlic and other vegetables. Mongolians call the big steamed dumpling as the buuz, and the small one as the bansh. It is considered that taste of buuz determines colour of that year, so every family do all the best to make delicious buuz.
Carcass mutton or hindquarter of beef is used for making the buuz. A cold day is the best for making the buuz because it is useful to reserve it in a large number. Families usually help their neighbours to prepare buuz, and elders form the buuz, whereas children put them in rows on specially-prepared panels. Another person counts the buuz, and then put the buuz in freezing cold place. While making the buuz, family members talk to each other interesting stories and have fun, and it helps them to finish the work quickly.
Anyone who finds one of the coins cooked into the buuz is considered lucky and will be a wealthy person that year. Sometimes, the buuz is cooked with an anklebone or rice. That lucky person who found the coin must reserve it.
In a city or settlements, families sometimes buy prepared buuz or bansh instead of making them, and it costs about 7-10 US dollars per kilo.
The main preparation method of the buuz is steaming, and it is eaten not only in Tsagaan Sar, but also it is favourite food of Mongolians prepared every day.