Free Chinese Recipes

Ingredients

• 900 g (2 lb) dried shark’s fin (in large sheet pieces)
• 3 liters (6 pints) stock
• 12 slices root ginger
• 900 g (2 lb) lean pork
• 900 g (2 lb) pig’s trotters
• 225 g (1/2 lb) ham
• 1 medium onion
• 2 chickens (1 young chicken and 1 boiling fowl)
• 1 liter (2 pints) stock
• 275 g (10 oz) abalone
• 30 ml (2 tablespoons) soy sauce

Serve 8

Method:

1. Prepare the fins by soaking them in water overnight, and brushing away any sand or extraneous matter. Place the fins in an enamel or earthenware pot and add 1 liter (2 pints) stock and 4 slices root ginger. Bring to the boil, and simmer very gently for 2 1/2 Hours. Change the stock and ginger, repeating the operation twice, making the cooking 7 1/2 hours in all.

2. Cut the pork, trotters, ham, onion and boiling fowl into quarters. Parboil them for 2 minutes, drain away any impurities, and add them into the pot with the shark’s fin. Pour in the best stock. Bring to a gentle boil (put an asbestos sheet under the pot) and simmer very gently for 4 hours.

3. Remove the pork, trotters, ham, onion and chicken and put them aside for other uses. Trim the fins into regular-sized pieces with a pair of scissors. Remove the head and feet of the young chicken, chop and quarter the body. Parboil it for 5 minutes and put it in the pot to simmer together with the fins for 30 minutes. Add abalone and soy sauce and simmer for 5 minutes.

4. Remove the chicken and abalone. Cut the abalone and chicken flesh into regular sized medium-sized thin slices, and arrange them, overlapping, at the bottom of a deep-sided, ceramic, heatproof dish. Strain the liquid in the pot, skim away any excess fat and return it to the pot to simmer with the fins for a further 30 minutes to reduce further.

5. Pick the pieces of shark’s fin out of the pot with a pair of chopsticks or tongs and arrange them on top of the chicken and abalone spread out in the serving dish.

6. Pour some of the sauce, which has been thickened through prolonged cooking, over the pile of fins, sliced chicken and abalone, without drowning them. Insert the dish, firmly covered with tinfoil, into a steamer to steam for 5 minutes and serve.

Note: Shark’s fins are consumed for their texture, and for the richness of the orchestrated flavor. This is a party dish which is very time consuming to prepare, rewarding only for those who have time to spare, and for the connoisseur’s palate.