Balance and harmony — Celebrate Chinese New Year with yin-yang cookies

Let's get this out of the way: I don't like Chinese food — at least the kind you usually get at your local suburban restaurant, where everything tastes like it was made in the same brown sauce.

I DO love a celebration, and the next big party is the Chinese New Year beginning Feb. 7.

My friend and cookbook author, Mitchell Davis, makes a treat for graduation ceremonies at the International Taoist Tai Chi Society in New York City: yin-yang cookies — chocolate and vanilla cookies formed into the shape of the black-and-white symbol that in Chinese philosophy represents the understanding of how the universe works.

Originating in the early Han dynasty, around the time of the birth of Christ, yin and yang are two opposing yet complementary principles or forces such as light (yang) and dark (yin), or wealth and poverty.

In the United States, when we talk yin-yang, we often think of balance and harmony. And what better way to honor the new year than with harmony and balance in your universe?

You need two batches of dough, one vanilla and one chocolate. Throughout the process it's best to work with the vanilla (the yang) dough first to keep it free of chocolate (the yin) flecks. There's also less dishwashing involved.

Unifying the two doughs into the yin-yang symbol is the only tricky part of this basic recipe, Davis says. Well-chilled dough is essential. Don't worry if the dough feels too cold when you take it out of the fridge; your warm hands will make it pliable.

Roll the dough into logs of roughly equal diameter and length. Imagine a 3-D apostrophe when shaping each dough log into its half of the cookie — that's what a cross section should look like. To create the shape, place your thumbs tip to tip slightly off center on the log. Using your fingers to hold the log in place, make about a 1/2-inch depression along the length of the log.

The two logs fit together like pieces of a puzzle, and you solidify the connection by smoothing the seams and rolling them together. The cookies are later sliced off.

The last step is the use of the chocolate chips inserted into the dough to complete the symbol. The chips represent the dots of dark and light embedded within their opposite in the symbol, showing that each half of yin-yang cannot exist without the other. Put the chip — flat side up — into the dough so it settles just below the surface.

YIN-YANG COOKIES