玉米鱼肚羹 (corn with fish maw soup) recipe

*back dated entry*

this was supposed to be a super long post about what i cooked during chinese new year.... finally going to post the soup recipe that i prepared for dinner which is 玉米鱼肚羹 or corn with fish maw soup.... pretty simple dish but nice to drink....

ingredients:

the ingredients

fish maw                                                       2-3 pieces
campbelle cream of chicken soup                  3 cans
corn kernel                                                   1 packet
swanson chicken broth                                  1 can
chinese/japanese mushroom                          6 pieces
chicken fillet                                                  150g
dried conpoy (瑶柱)                                     6 pieces
water                                                            4L

this portion will be sufficient for 10pax unless each person want to drink like 500mL each....

Steps:
1. first blench the fish maw in boiling water with ginger & spring onion for afew minutes to remove the oil & fishy taste... after afew minutes, it will start to soften.... continue to press on it once in awhile to let it excrete out the oil... repeat this step till no more oil is coming out from the fish maw

fish maw before soaking in boiling water

fish maw after afew minutes

2. soak dried conpoy & mushroom in water for at least 30min, till soften
3. diced the ingredients (chicken, mushroom & fish maw)

diced ingredients

4. marinate the diced chicken in soya sauce, salt, sugar & corn starch
5. pour the campbell soup + chicken broth into pot & add water.... bring to boil
6. add mushroom, conpoy & corn in.... boil for 1hr at medium flame
7. add fish maw & chicken in, boil for additional 30min...
8. sample the soup & season with salt if necessary

final product

cny reunion dinner

*back dated entry*

after my papa saying he want to eat pen cai (盆菜) for a couple of years, this year we finally gotten one as i saw a pretty ok deal on deals.sg.... normally the 盆菜 price at restaurants like crystal jade will cost about $400+ for 6 pax but the deal i saw only cost $158 for 6 pax but only for takeaway & somemore have complementary yu sheng from hotel Re!.... so i thought hey, quite a good deal, just get one & try... & again... there is a catch which i shall talk more about it later on....

since this year we gotten the pen cai, so we thought of cooking lesser food since the portion is for 6 pax & we have only have 7 adults & 2 babies.... i tell you... wrong move... NEVER believe what they state online.... when my mama called in & arrange for collection time & date, the staff said the pen cai is for 4-6 pax... as usual, they will state the max number of people online... but ok... we give it to them & thinking 4 pax for pen cai should be still quite a large of amount of food.... so this year i cooked lesser food, i only prepared corn + fish maw soup, mushroom+oyster+fat choi & prawn for dinner...

pen cai

yu sheng

yu sheng with salmon slices

 ok.. from the picture, i think the pen cai looked pretty decent.... i would say was really average... there wasnt much ingredient inside... it had 6 abalone, some mushroom, several oysters which tasted super salty like salted fish, radish, fat choi, broccoli & some yong tau fu thing....  i would say the portion really not enough for 4 pax, not mentioning 6pax UNLESS everyone is super small eater... the yu sheng was pretty pathetic too but it was complementary so i shall not complain much about it... but i would say the portion was too little for 6pax if you had to pay for it.....

the reunion dinner dishes = pen cai, mushroom+oyster & prawn

so due to our over expectation of the pen cai... i would say this year reunion dinner we didnt have as much food as we used to.... of cause we didnt go hungry but probably will have a more sumptuous meal next year....