Fish Maw & Fish Ball Soup 鱼膘鱼丸汤

Fish Maw & Fish Ball Soup 鱼膘鱼丸汤

 

See the fish balls ?....they need not be perfectly spherical

  

Growing up in the 50s and 60s we used to eat a lot of fish balls and fish cakes (yee pang) made from 100% fish even from the hawker stalls. But somewhere after the 70s things changed and the food available outside became commercialised and the tastes were never the same again!  Well, today you can rediscover the authentic taste of fish balls and fish cakes again. Here's how!

Ingredients :

400g Chinese Cabbage (Wong Ngah Pak)

30 pieces of fish balls

2 pieces of fish maw

1/4 piece of laver ( seaweed )

1 tbsp toong choy ( Chinese preserved vegetables )

1 tbsp fried shallot oil

2 litres of chicken stock

2 tsp salt, or to taste

 

Step-by-Step preparation

1. Fish Maw :  Boil the 2 pieces of fish maw in water until soft. Rinse thoroughly in water several times. Squeeze gently to remove the oil. Repeat the rinsing and squeezing until the the fish maw is clean. Cut into bite size pieces

before boiling in water

After boiling and cut into sections

      

2.  Laver or seaweed :  You need only a quarter piece of the seaweed shown here. Toast the laver over a flame very quickly, otherwise it gets burnt. Set it aside for use later.

Laver or seaweed

  3.  Toong Choy :  Scoop out 1 tbsp of  Chinese preserved vegetables or toong choy

Toong Choy

.

4.  Chinese cabbage :  Cut the Chinese cabbage ( wong ngah pak  ) into sections. Wash and soak the Chinese cabbage for a while then drain off the water.

Chinese cabbage

5.  Fish paste :  To make the fish paste,  you can click  here

Fish paste

6. Fish ball : to make the fish ball, get a handful of fish paste and squeeze through your thumb and forefinger as shown  below. Use spoon to scoop it and put it into a bowl of water

scoop out the fish ball once the round shape is formed

7. Shallot  oil :  Slice 1 shallot and fry the slices in 4 tbsp of cooking oil until fragrant and slightly brownish. Use only 1 tbsp of the fried shallot oil for this soup. You can keep the balance in the fridge for future use.

Cooking Method

1.  Put the 2 litres of chicken stock in a pot. and bring it to boil.

2.  Add in the Chinese cabbage and boil until the vegetable is soft.

3.  Add in the fish balls and the fish maw together

4.  Once the fish balls are cooked they will float to the surface.

5.  Add in the laver, toong choy and fried shallot oil

6.  Add salt to taste

Mouth-watering fish maw & fish ball soup