Recipe: How to Make Vegetarian "Abalone"

On the first day of Chinese New Year, our family will eat vegetarian food for the day. Usually, for the first meal of the new year, we will cook "jai"素 as well as a few other vegetarian dishes containing auspicious ingredients such as mushrooms, carrots and fatt choy (black moss). 

Abalone, is a popular ingredient during Chinese New Year as it symbolises definite good fortune. It is however not vegetarian, so we actually made these look-a-like, mock vegetarian abalones using eryngii mushroom for the first day of CNY. 

Eryngii, also known as king oyster or trumpet mushroom have thick meaty stalks, with texture which has been likened to abalone. I first pan fried the "abalone" in some butter to give it some colour and then braised it with vegetarian oyster sauce... it was delicious! So, from next year onwards, we can have "abalone" on the first day of Chinese New Year!

How to Make Vegetarian Abalone

Our first meal for the Year of the Ox

How to Make Vegetarian Abalone
Makes 8 "abalones"

Ingredients

200g eryngii mushrooms 

A pat of salted butter

Vegetarian oyster sauce, to taste

150ml water

To serve

A few broccoli florets

Chinese mushrooms

1. Slice eryngii mushroom stalk, about 2.5cm thick. Get an oval cutter which has a smaller circumference than the mushroom. Using the oval cutter, press down in centre of the mushroom stalk, to about 5mm of the height of the mushroom. Next, using a knife, trim off about 5mm from top to the outer edge of oval cutter to get the abalone shape. If you do not have an oval cutter, you can manually cut out the oval shape using a knife.

2. Place butter in pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms, cook for 2 minutes, then flip and cook the other side for another 2 minutes.

3. Add water and vegetarian oyster sauce, and braise for about 5-10 minutes. Serve your "abalones" with braised mushrooms and steamed broccoli. 

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