Fish Maw ~ Fa Kau soup
K
nown in Cantonese as ‘Fa Kau’, I made this fish maw soup for our recent Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Fish maw refers to the fish stomach that has been extracted, cleaned and sundried and is only sold in dried form and needs to be reconstituted before cooking. After cooking, the texture resembles somewhat like the sea cucumber as it’s slippery and gelatinous with a mild fishy and rather bland taste.
Fish maw is harvested from various fish species from the seas around Thailand, Myanmar, India, New Zealand and United States of America and is believed to be nutritious and good for the lungs, curing persistent coughs and asthma.
I added in fish paste mixed with minced pork and threw in some vegetables to infuse the fish maw with some flavour……… a very refreshing soup indeed.
Recipe for Fish Maw ~ Fa Kau soup
Ingredients
- 50 gm dried fish maw
- 300 gm pork ribs
- 100 gm mince pork
- 150 gm fish paste
- 250 gm Chinese cabbage – cut
- 10 peppercorns – crushed
- 6 cups water
- Sea salt to taste
Seasoning
- 1/2 tsp of salt, sugar and sesame oil
Preparation
- Soak the fish maw till soft and blanch with hot boiling water. Drain, squeeze out the water and cut into pieces.
- Mix the mince pork and fish paste with the above seasoning. Set aside.
- Wash the pork ribs and blanch in hot boiling water. Drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.
- Bring the 6 cups of water to the boil, add in the peppercorns and the pork ribs. Continue to simmer under medium heat for about an hour or so.
- Add in the Chinese cabbage and fish maw to the soup and continue to simmer for about 30 mins.
- Roughly shape the minced pork fish paste mixture into balls and add into the simmering soup. Once they float up, they’re cooked.
- Fine tune to taste and ladle into serving bowls.
- Serve hot with rice.
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