I’m not sure when Chinese New Year came to be known as Lunar New Year. And why. My best guess is inclusion. I still fumble at times. Having called it Chinese New Year for so many decades. I have a love-hate relationship with this festival. It is good in so many ways, giving everyone a reason to come together for a common cause. But it has its dark side as well 🤭
This year has been good though. I like Lunar New Year this time round. As I did more cooking than usual, I also find myself struggling to remember dishes I used to cook way back. They were dishes I used to know by heart, now lost to my aging memory 😅 So I thought, better start documenting down these recipes as I cook through them. Especially when I may not cook them often (enough).
I shall start with my all-time favorite soup, which I coined as Popo’s CNY Soup. Because this is a dish we’ll only get to savor once a year, during Lunar New Year. Despite its flavors, it is super easy to make.
Ingredients (Serves 4-5 pax)
500g Prime Ribs (2 packets of fresh prime ribs from NTUC Fairprice)
3 big dried scallops or 5-6 small dried scallops
1 can of abalone in brine or 1 can of pacific clams or 1 can of razor clams
1 can of button mushrooms
The Night Before
- Soak the dried scallops in water for ~5mins.
- Drain the soaking water
- Rinse with running water for 2 to 3 times.
- Boil the prime ribs to remove/reduce any unpleasant smell/taste
- Bring a saucepan of water to boil
- Drop in the prime ribs
- Remove when the water returns to boil
- Add the ingredients from Steps 1 & 2 into 1.5 litre of water
- Bring to a boil on high heat
- Continue boiling on medium heat for 30mins
- Place item 3 into Thermal Cooker
Actual Meal Day
- In the morning
- Remove any floating oil & particles from the soup
- Reheat to a boil
- Return to Thermal Cooker
- Just before serving
- Add in the brine from the canned abalone/pacific clams/razor clams, and button mushrooms
- Bring to a boil
- Add in the canned abalone/pacific clams/razor clams, and button mushrooms
- Off fire & serve
Starting in the Early Morning
- Soak the dried scallops in water for ~5mins.
- Drain the soaking water
- Rinse with running water for 2 to 3 times.
- Boil the prime ribs to remove/reduce any unpleasant smell/taste
- Bring a saucepan of water to boil
- Drop in the prime ribs
- Remove when the water returns to boil
- Add the ingredients from Steps 1 & 2 into 1.5 litre of water
- Bring to a boil on high heat
- Continue boiling on low to medium heat for 3 – 5 hours
- Occasionally
- Monitor water level, and adjust fire
- Remove any floating oil & particles from the soup
- Just before serving
- Add in the brine from the canned abalone/pacific clams/razor clams, and button mushrooms
- Bring to a boil
- Add in the canned abalone/pacific clams/razor clams, and button mushrooms
- Off fire & serve
Hope you enjoy the soup as much as I do! Just look at how thick the soup is! 😍
