During Chinese New Year, certain ingredients with auspicious meanings are served to reflect good luck for the coming year. The pronunciation of fish (“yu” 鱼) is a homonym for abundance or surpluses in Chinese, so you will often find fish dishes during the reunion dinner. You can serve a whole fish (recipe for steamed fish here) if you can get your hands on a fresh fish, otherwise you can try this fish maw with mushrooms recipe.

Fish maw 鱼鳔 can be found easily prior to the Chinese New Year period. There are many places selling them, but my personal favorite are the ones from Eu Yan Sang (RM28 for 2 packs, 150g each). They come in “thick” or “thin” varieties, and we usually go for the “thick” variety as the mouthfeel is much better. These fish maw have already been deep fried, so all you need to do is to soak them in cold water for 1 hour before cooking. The pre-packed fish maw usually keeps for a few months, so you can buy more and cook them even after CNY.

Fish maw is nice in soups or stews. I like to cook them with some mushrooms, sugar snap peas and oyster sauce. You can use either dried Chinese or Shitake mushrooms. The fish maw is braised over low heat for 45 minutes to give it a slight chewy texture. The braising gravy is good over rice.

Fish Maw with Mushrooms Stew
Recipe by Baby Sumo
Preparation time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: 50-60 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients
90g fish maw (approx 4 pieces)
6 mushrooms, soaked for 2 hours
1 inch old ginger, sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic, minced
50g chicken, cut into small chunks
2 tbsp oil
700ml water
2 tbsp oyster sauce, or more to taste
6-8 sugar snap peas, cut into half

To garnish
Coriander or spring onion

1. Soak the fish maw in a bowl of cold water for at least 1 hour before cooking. Drain and then cut into 2-inch lengths.

2. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium high heat. Add the garlic and ginger and fry for 2 minutes until fragrant. Add the chicken and mushrooms, and cook for another 2 minutes, until chicken pieces are lightly browned.

3. Place the fish maw into the pot and pour over the water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce to low heat and simmer for 45 minutes, covered.

4. Add the oyster sauce, to taste. Add the sugar snap peas and cook for 1 minute. Serve immediately.

Source: Goody Foodies

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