Chinese new year vegetarian

Ingredients

10 small shitake mushrooms - soaked overnight, stalks trimmed off
20 lotus buds (kum chem) - soaked overnight, hard ends trimmed off
20 cloud ear fungus - soaked overnight, hard gritty bits cleaned off

50 gm glass noodles
1 sheet about 40 cm x 30 cm soya cream sheets (fu chok)

6 fermented soya cubes (lam yue)

100-200 gm chinese cabbage (wong ah bak) - cut into 2 cm strips

Vege oil

Method

Fry the glass noodles in oil till they puff up. Remove from oil before they brown. Do the same with the fuchok. Break them into small pieces. Put both aside.

Add 4 tbsp oil to the pan. When it is slightly hot, add the lam yue cubes. Break up the cubes in the oil and fry till fragrant (important) but not scorched. Add the shitake mushrooms, mix well with the lam yue. Add a little bit of water and let cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Then add the lotus buds and cloud ear fungus. Fry for 3 minutes. Add the fuchok and chinese cabbage. Add a bit of water. Let cook for 3 minutes. Then add the glass noodles before the chinese cabbage is done. Add more water if it is too dry. Cook another 3 minutes or so till the cabbage is done. Season with salt but go easy with it. it may not even need salt as the lam yue is pretty salty. Serve hot.

If you have dried oysters, they should be soaked overnight, and fried in the lam yue before the shitake mushrooms. They add a lovely depth to the flavour. Alas, I have not been able to find any here.