How to Cook A Soup with Preserved Mustard Green, Zao Cai 糟菜

If you have followed the Chinese Dialect, Foo Chow style of cooking, then I am sure you are not foreign to this red glutinous red yeast. It can be fermented into wine and it can also be used to preserve mustard green. The preserved vegetables I am using today is from that origin.

This preserved mustard green gives a sourish taste which is extra appetizing when it is dropped into soup especially. Usually we like to add a thicker rice vermicelli into the soup called 粉干 fen gan， that becomes 糟菜粉干 Zao Cai Fen Gan.

This is the smaller packet of Cao Cai with it being cut into edible size inside the packet.

This is a bigger packet so I have to cut it myself before cooking.

Today I would like to try to cook this dish that is my favorite food to order when I eat in a Sarawakkian restaurant.

Ingredients:

🛒Some frozen fish fillet

🛒Ginger

🛒Preserved mustard greens / zao cai

🛒Tomatoes

🛒Napa Cabbage (optional)

Marinate the fish fillet for at least half an hour after cutting it into pieces. My marinade was really simple: white pepper, light soy sauce and oyster sauce.

All ready set to go!

How I cooked it....

Heat oil in wok and add in the ginger. Fry till fragrant.

Add in the preserved mustard greens/Zao Cai and stir fry it a while with the ginger.

Add in the diced tomatoes.

Then add in the marinated fish fillet.

Add on water enough to cover the ingredients and let the soup boil a while.

Let it simmer a while and then add salt and sugar to taste. If you find it not sourish enough, add more preserved mustard greens which I did. Finally I added in fresh napa cabbage as I want the children to have some fresh vegetables besides preserved ones only.

Next, boil some noodles. This thicker rice vermicelli looks like this before dropping them into boiling water.

It will soften up after it is boiled.

Add some noodles into a bowl and dish out the hot soup. Voila, it is served!

Some people usually cooked this with pork but I had earlier on defrosted my fish fillet to cook something else and I changed my mind to cook this. The combo is not too bad. I super love the appetizing soup that I can drink a few bowls of it.

Do you think you can cook this too? The steps is quite simple but the challenge will be perhaps finding the preserved vegetables in your local store. All the best!!!