Braised Sea Cucumber with Mushroom.

Sea cucumber is an animal, not a plant. This is a very simple dish that every Chinese family can relate and enjoy. It is not only flavourful but also has high nutritional value. Sea cucumber with its gelatinous texture is a delicacy in Chinese cuisines. It is believed to help to prevent from aging. However, sea cucumber is a very difficult food item to prepare in the kitchen. When cooking sea cucumber, one need to consider the day you planned to cook the delicacy. Fresh frozen sea cucumbers can be cooked on the day itself while dried sea cucumbers have to be soaked for at least two days depending on the quality of the sea cucumber. Some might even takes one week or more.

We came upon this recipe that is deemed suitable for home-cooking. Below are the ingredients and cooking instructions:

• 10 to 12 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 300 grams sea cucumbers
• 6 to 8 slices ginger divided
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic peeled and smashed
• 1 to 2 shallots peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon tapioca starch or corn starch
• 1/4 teaspoon sesame seed oil
• 1 head broccoli broken into florets and blanched in salted water

Cooking Instructions.

Place the shiitake mushrooms in a bowl and pour in warm water. Soak for 15 minutes, flip them over and soak for 15 minutes more (soaking them for as long as three hours won’t hurt. Snip off the stems of the shiitake and discard. Cut the caps into halves if large. You want bite-size pieces. Strain the liquid in which the mushrooms have soaked. You will need about three cups.

While the shiitake mushrooms rehydrate, rinse the sea cucumbers and make sure the cavities are clean. Drop the sea cucumbers into a pot, add half of the ginger and cover with water. Bring to the boil, lower the heat, cover the pot and cook the sea cucumbers with the ginger for 15 to 20 minutes to remove the strong fishy odor. Drain the sea cucumbers, rinse under the tap (or plunge in an ice bath) then cut into bite-size pieces.

Heat the cooking oil in a wok or frying pan. Saute the remaining ginger, all of the garlic and shallot(s) in the oil until fragrant. Turn up the heat. Add the shiitake and sea cucumbers. Stir fry until every piece is coated with oil. Reserve a quarter cup of the mushroom liquid and pour the rest into the wok with the sea cucumbers and mushrooms. Stir in the soy sauce, pepper, sugar and oyster sauce. Bring to the boil. Set the heat to low, cover the wok and cook the sea cucumbers and mushrooms until tender and the liquid is reduced to less than half. Stir the starch in the reserved mushroom liquid. Pour the starch solution into the wok. Cook, stirring, until the sauce is thick and clear. Taste. Add salt, as needed. Off the heat, drizzle in the sesame seed oil and toss everything to blend.

Arrange the blanched broccoli florets on one side of a serving platter. Ladle your delicious Chinese-style braised sea cucumbers and shiitake mushrooms, with the sauce, on the opposite side.

Panseas Way of Cooking

In Panseas, we provide cooked sea cucumber that paired with either fish maw, abalone or mushroom. Simply heat the delicacy five minutes into the microwave and “bam” best served with rice. Do contact us for more information. Additionally you can also purchase fresh or dried sea cucumber from us with a special discount.

Source from https://devour.asia/braised-sea-cucumbers-and-shiitake/