Braised Seacucumber with Pork Loin

Never imagine I cooked this dish but hey I did it. Thanks to my in-law who brought these wonderful dry seacucumbers all the way from Hong Kong and cleaned them for me and also the recipe was provided by my mother in law.

I seldom eat seacucumber at home and usually they only serve seacucumber in the wedding reception dinner. Seacucumber is quite an expensive seafood but according to my in law, they are very nutritious especially to women.

Cleaning Seacucumber takes a lot of patient and steps. I don't really know how to clean them. If I recall correctly, they need to be soak in the water for couple days then boil it with ginger and scallion and then let it sit in the boiling water for another day or 2. The finished seacucumber should be double its size and a good quality of seacucmber should taste tender and not too chewvy after cooking.

Ingredient:

• 1 seacucumber (hoi sum) Soak and cleaned ready to cook
• 1lb pork loin cut into 3/4 inch size
• 10 mushrooms
• 5 scallops
• 10 dry oysters
• 1/4 cup black moss (Fat choy)
• 4 slice of ginger root
• 3 scallion cut into 2 inches long
• 2 -3 tsp oyster sauce

Marinade:

• 1 tsp juice of ginger
• 1 tsp chop garlic
• 1 tbsp Shau Heng wine
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp corn starch

Preparation:

• Soak mushrooms into water until soft then cut into half. Keep the water.
• Soak scallops into water until soft (about 1 hour). Keep the water.
• Soak dry oysters until soft (about 1 hour). Keep the water.
• Combine all soaking water into a larger bowl for later use.
• Soak black moss (Fat choy) and divide the moss into smaller portion.
• Cut seacucumber into 8 to 10 pieces
• Mixed all the marinate ingredients together. Add cut pork loin into marinade and let it marinate for 30 minutes or longer.

Method:

• Heat work with 3-4 tbsp oil and Place the pork on the wok 1 by 1 to brown the meat. Once all the meats are browned, set aside.
• Place sliced ginger root, scallions at the bottom of big pot.
• Place sea cucumber above the ginger and scallion.
• Mix oysters' sauce with 2 1/2 cup of the soaking water in a bowl.
• Pour the mixture into the pot and pour remaining soaking water into the pot until the sea cucumbers are covered with water.
• Bring to boil and let it simmer for another 1 hour.
• Check the pot once a while to make sure the sauce don't get too dry.
• Cook sea cucumber until it reach the tenderness you preferred and the sauce reduced and thicken.
• Add the remaining ingredient: pork loin, mushroom, oyster, black moss, scallops and cook for another 20 to 30 minutes.
• Salt to taste.