My late mum used to make a Chinese vegetarian dish (Loh Hon Jai) on the first day of Chinese New Year. I have not eaten this dish for a long time until my next door neighbour, Richard and Jeanie shared it with me. The dish brought back so much sweet memories and I’m really grateful to Richard and Jeanie for sharing the recipe with me.

Ingredients

• Fresh oyster mushrooms
• Dried shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted or fresh shiitake mushrooms
• Cloud ear mushrooms, reconstituted
• Cabbages, blanched
• Fried gluten (mien gen), blanched to remove excess oil
• Can fried gluten, remove top later of oil but reserve the liquid
• Fried tofu puff, the rectangular type
• Fried bean curd stick, blanched until soft
• Bean curd skin, lightly fried
• Vemicelli (tung fen), cooked in boiling water for 2 minutes and rinse off in cold water
• Shanghai bean curd, red (lam yue), mushed up to dissolve in some water and strain if necessary
• Corn starch solution
• few cloves of garlic, chopped

You may any mushrooms in season or can mushroom like straw mushroom, button mushroom, inoki mushroom, etc. The Shanghai red bean curd can be substituted with oyster sauce.

Click on the link below for the instructions.

Instructions

The night before, reconstitute the dried mushrooms like cloud ear, dried shiitake mushrooms and lily bud (if using). Keep the water for reconstituting the shiitake mushroom for use in the cooking later.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch the cabbage until soften. Use the same pot of water to cook the vermicelli. Lastly, blanch the fried gluten, fried tofu puff and fried bean curd stick to remove excess oil.

On medium heat, heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large wok and fry the chopped garlic until fragrant but not burn. Remove the garlic for returning to the dish later.

Stir fry all the mushrooms, with the hardy ones in first for a few minutes. Season with white pepper.

Then add in the blanched fried gluten, tofu puff, bean curd skin, garlic and the can fried gluten together with the liquid in the can. Also add the shiitake mushrooms soaking water and continue to stir fry. Season with more white pepper. The dish can be frozen at this point.

Next, the cabbage and the cloud ear mushrooms go in. Stir fry for another few minutes to combine well.

Season the dish with the Shanghai red bean curd mixtures or oyster sauce. Add more water if needed so that there is enough liquid in the dish.

Thicken the sauce with some corn starch solutions.

Lastly, toss in the cooked vermicelli and mix well. Add salt to taste.

Ben and Arkensen like this dish a lot and had requested me to cook this again. This will be my family regulars. Richard and Jeanie, thanks again for sharing.