poon choi 盆菜

Even the most ardent foodies of Chinese cuisine, very few Westerners knows about poon choi 盆菜. It is a all in one dish served in a big basin. To be fair even for someone who grew up in Hong Kong I knew very little about this dish. I had seen them during special occasions but it was not something my parents would make.

In my recent trips to the city I begun to notice a lot of Cantonese restaurants promote this dish for the Chinese new year banquets. I would love to try it but the problem is for most restaurants this dish, or rather basin of food is typically for a party of 12. Recently I tried my hands on this dish. Instead of shopping for the pre-planned ingredients I used what I have on hand. In fact my dish grew out from my determination to purge the forgotten stuff deep in the freezer and refrigerators.


this sad looking dried oysters are amongst the forgotten stuff in the refrigerator - they are so dehydrated from being in the refrigerator for nearly a year; however you would see the transformation later once they are re-hydrated and cooked

For a bit of history of poon choi 盆菜 this WSJ article is well researched.

The ingredients for the preparation of poon choi 盆菜 are very flexible. However like dishes that shares similar attributes in different cuisine, there are some implicit rules of what goes with the dish. For a dish that seemingly has no rules it does not mean anything goes. This is where the experience of the cuisine and foodie passions come in.

As typical with poon choi 盆菜 one would use a lot of dried ingredients. I have accumulated a good assortment of these. In this rendition most of the ingredients are dried. It was the end of my typical weekly shopping cycle so there is very little fresh ingredients in my refrigerator.

Dried Ingredients:
black fungus called won yee 雲耳 - translated as cloud ears
shitake mushroom 香菇
tea mushroom 茶菇 - this is a very fragrant mushroom with long stems and tiny head
dried scallops 瑤柱
dried oysters 蠔豉
fish maw 魚肚
dried tofu skin 幹豆腐皮
chinese sausage 臘腸
dried lily flower 金針菜
glass noodles - it is made of flour of green bean

Wet Ingredients:
(frozen) 3 sea prawns 大蝦
live mussels 青口
one small lobster tail 龍蝦尾 (frozen)
cooked crab meat 蟹肉 and juice 
chinese celery 
shallot onion
garlic
ginger
scallions
boiled eggs
red pepper
(frozen) cuttlefish 墨魚 tentacles

The fresh and dried seafood releases a lot of tasty juice. I used very simple seasoning and spices - just some oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, ground pepper, and rice cooking wine (optional).

it is not easy to estimate the resultant portion as there are so much ingredients - there is enough for many meals as it turned out

the two brown things at lower left are dried oyster; the slice at the front is shitake mushroom; the black piece at the back is black fungus

 you can see the bits of lobster tail meat as well as the prawn

 a piece of cuttlefish tentacle

 this is lily flower - the translucent noodle near the spoon is glass noodle

i put it in a stainless steel tub to live up to the dish's meaning of poon choi 盆菜

 the boiled egg soaked up the tasty juice - this is a bowl I had as breakfast the following morning

with just a small amount of the dish left after many meals I cooked up a good batch of glass noodles and turned it into a dish with mostly noodles

I haven't have glass noodles for very long time. It really grew on me due to the lightness and the unique mouthfeel; I lucked out on finding a good brand too