Cantonese Seafood Soup

A clear thickened soup where every piece of seafood goes in after the heat is off and cooks in the residual heat alone.

Fish, Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken stock, fish, shellfish.

Ingredients

• 1.2 litres light chicken stock
• 150 g raw prawns, peeled and halved lengthways
• 150 g scallops, sliced into discs
• 150 g firm white fish, in 2 cm pieces
• 100 g crab meat
• 60 g bamboo shoots, in fine shreds
• 4 dried shiitake, soaked and sliced
• 20 g ginger, in fine shreds
• 2 egg whites, beaten loose
• 3 tablespoons cornflour in 5 tablespoons cold water
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• white pepper
• coriander

Method

1. THE SEAFOOD GOES IN AFTER THE HEAT IS OFF. All of it, at once, into a soup that has just stopped boiling and has been thickened. Prawn, scallop and white fish cut this thin are cooked through in 90 seconds of residual heat, and anything beyond that takes them straight to rubber. A soup where the seafood simmers for five minutes is the usual version and the reason it is usually disappointing.
2. THE SOUP IS THICKENED BEFORE THE SEAFOOD, NOT AFTER. Thickened liquid holds its heat far better than thin, which is what makes the off-heat cooking work, and stirring cornflour into a pan full of delicate seafood breaks all of it up.
3. All the seafood cut and kept cold on a plate until the moment it is wanted.
4. Stock, ginger, shiitake and bamboo brought to a simmer and cooked 8 minutes. Wine and salt in.
5. The cornflour slurry stirred again and poured in while stirring. Brought back to a simmer for 1 full minute so the starch cooks out -- undercooked cornflour tastes chalky and that taste does not go away later.
6. The egg whites poured in a thin thread from a height while the soup is stirred slowly in one direction, so they set in fine strands.
7. HEAT OFF. Wait for the surface to stop moving.
8. All the seafood in at once, pushed under gently with the back of a ladle. Lid on.
9. 90 seconds. The prawns will have curled and turned opaque and the scallop discs will have lost their translucency.
10. Crab meat folded through at the very end -- it is already cooked and only needs warming.
11. Sesame oil, a hard grind of white pepper and the coriander. Served immediately; it does not sit and cannot be reheated without ruining the seafood.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes