Traditional Chinese Cooking with Minxi: The Fish Maw Soup Recipe

On Lantua Island we saw these things:

Turns out that these are fish bladders, or air sacks.  In this case dried fish bladders; also called "Maw" or in phuntonghua "yu biao."  This can be somewhat of a delicacy in China and is the basis for a yummy New Year's soup.    Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 pound dried fish maw

1/2 pound other fish (fish balls, scallops, etc.)

6 cups of chicken stock

1/4 cup sliced fresh ginger

1/4 cup chopped green onion

1 Cup Mushrooms (I couldn't figure out what kind of mushroom, shitake maybe?)

2 Eggs

Directions:

Let the fish maw soak for one hour until soft, then chop. Or, if it is already a powder, just soak.

In your wok, simmer the ginger and green onions until soft, add the other fish.   

In  a separate bowl, mix the fish maw and the chicken stock.  When the other fish is cooked, add the stock/ fish maw mixture.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Just before serving, add the two eggs and allow to cook into the soup.  Serve with rice.  Duh!

There you go. The Traditional Chinese Fish Maw Soup recipe.  Have a question about a chinese food recipe?  Drop us a line.  Minxi knows a lot more about Chinese food than you can imagine!