Pen Cai (盆菜)

by wiffy on February 5, 2013

in Asian,Braising/Simmering,Chinese,Chinese New Year Recipes,Claypot Recipes,Easy One-Dish Meals,Mushrooms,Recipes,Seafood,Tofu/Beancurd,Vegetables

Pen Cai; Photo from instagram: Follow me on instagram

Cooking this festive season? Check out: Chinese Lunar New Year Recipes

Pen Cai (Poon Choi/Pen Chai/Peng Cai/Big Bowl Feast) literally means “basin vegetables” (盆菜) as it was traditionally served to the Emperor in wooden washbasins during the Song Dynasty (adapted to claypot or casserole in modern times). It is a traditional one-pot Chinese dish of Cantonese origin, and have been a very popular dish in Hong Kong. In recent years, the dish gained immense popularity as a Chinese New Year dish in Singapore. A distinctive feature of Pen Chai is that the ingredients in the claypot are cooked separately, layered and topped with an assortment of seafood delicacies fit for royalty (with luxurious seafood such as abalone and scallops). Eating pen cai signifies abundance and richness in the coming year. I made this pen cai on Sunday for my family’s early Chinese New Year reunion dinner as I will be away during the festive season and I’m happy that it was well-received on the dinner table!

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Home-made Pen Cai topped with luxurious treasures

I used several shortcuts, but I still took 3 hours to make this dish from start to finish! Although it is tedious and time-consuming to prepare, the method is relatively easy. My cost price for the ingredients was S$100 but I believe the market rate at restaurants is easily S$300, so there is strong justification for all that hard work. The pot is also very filling and can easily be served as a one-dish meal for 6 persons (we had other Chinese New Year dishes to accompany it though), with possibly leftovers for the next day.

If you don’t mind my non-authentic, improvised and “short-cut” recipe for Pen Cai, check out page two for Pen Cai recipe.

Page 1: Introduction to Pen Cai | Page 2: Recipe for Pen Cai | Page 3: Layering Pen Cai

Pages: 1 2 3

Ingredients Used abalone • broccoli • carrot • chicken stock • chinese wine • cornstarch • daikon • dark soy sauce • fat choy • fish maw • ginger • mushroom • napa cabbage • prawn • roast duck • scallop • siu yuk • tau kee • tau kwa • wolfberry