Chinese Cabbage Soup with Fish Maw

It was the Lunar New Year a few weeks back and here in Penang, majority of the people will have steamboat for their reunion dinner which is the meal on the eve of the Lunar New Year. However, we did not have any steamboat this year as we went to celebrate the occasion with my parents in Ipoh.

Then we went to KL on the 9th Day of the Lunar New Year for almost 2 weeks. During our stay in KL, my mom managed to whip up a few meals for us to enjoy. During one of the meals she boiled this really yummy Chinese cabbage soup using a particular Chinese cabbage which is only available during this festive season... well, according to her lar! :P

So, upon returning to Penang, I have to do some marketing to stock up for the week and I found this particular cabbage selling in Tesco. Since the weather is extremely hot here, having cabbage soup is ideal since it has a cooling effect (according to the Chinese lar).

I bought some fish maw during our pre-CNY  groceries shopping and since we did not get to use them for reunion dinner I added them into the cabbage soup instead. These gave the soup more fragrance.

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This cabbage looks a little different as compared to the regular Chinese cabbage

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Ingredients

• 1 whole Chinese cabbage peel and cit into half


• 2 sticks Carrot (cut into small blocks)


• 250g Pork ribs


• 2L Water


• 10-12 Red dates (de-seed)


• 6-8 pcs Dried oysters


• Some Dried cuttlefish


• 50g Fish maw


• Salt for taste

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Methods

1. Heat up water in a pot and put in pork ribs when it boils. Let it boil for a while and remove all the scums.


2. Add in the red dates, dried cuttlefish, dried oysters and carrot and let them boil on slow heat for about 30 minutes. Add in the Chinese cabbage and continue to boil till it is soft... approximately for another hour.


3. In a separate saucepan, boil some water and blanch the pre-soaked fish maw for about 5 minutes. Don't have to cook too long as the gelatin will melt away.


4. When the soup is done (around 1.5 to 2 hours) add in some salt for taste and toss in the the soften fish maw for another 10 minutes on high heat. Serve.