Poon Choi is a traditional dish in Guangdong and the New Territories of Hong Kong, with a history of hundreds of years. Legend has it that Poon Choi originated at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty when the Yuan soldiers went south and Emperor Bing of Song fled to the area of the New Territories of Hong Kong. In order to entertain the emperor, the local villagers used the ingredients they had on hand and put them layer by layer into a large pot to cook, forming the original Poon Choi. Another saying is that Poon Choi was formed by the Hakka people putting various ingredients into a large pot for cooking in order to facilitate carrying and cooking during the migration process. Regardless of its origin, Poon Choi embodies the Chinese people’s culture of reunion and rich diet.
Features：
The characteristic of Poon Choi is its rich ingredients and layered placement. Poon Choi usually contains more than a dozen or even dozens of ingredients, such as seafood, meat, and vegetables, which are placed layer by layer in the pot in a certain order. The ingredients of Poon Choi are rich and diverse, the flavors permeate each other, and the soup is rich and delicious, implying reunion, abundance, and auspiciousness.
Ingredients：
- Seafood: Abalone, sea cucumber, prawns, dried scallops, dried oysters
- Meat: Roasted goose, roasted pork, pig’s trotters, chicken, duck
- Vegetables: Radish, shiitake mushrooms, dried bean curd sticks, taro, lotus root
- Others: Pork skin, fish balls, fried tofu
- Soup base: Old chicken, pork bones, ham
Instructions：
- Prepare the soup base: Put the old chicken, pork bones, and ham in the pot, add enough water, bring to a boil over high heat, then turn to low heat and simmer for 2-3 hours to make a rich soup base.
- Process ingredients: Clean various ingredients separately, such as soaking seafood, blanching meat, and cutting vegetables into pieces.
- Layered placement: Put the ingredients into the pot in a certain order. Usually, the ingredients that are not easy to cook are placed on the bottom layer, such as radish and taro, and the easy-to-cook ingredients are placed on the top layer, such as vegetables and seafood.
- Add soup base: Pour the simmered soup base into the pot, covering the ingredients.
- Stew: Put the Poon Choi in the pot, bring to a boil over high heat, then turn to low heat and simmer for 1-2 hours, so that the ingredients fully absorb the flavor of the soup.
Precautions：
- Choose fresh ingredients to ensure taste and hygiene.
- The ingredients must be processed properly, such as soaking the seafood clean and blanching the meat to remove the fishy smell.
- The layered placement should be reasonable to ensure the taste and beauty of the ingredients.
- The stewing time should be sufficient to allow the ingredients to fully absorb the flavor of the soup.
- The ingredients of Poon Choi can be adjusted according to personal preferences, but it is necessary to ensure the combination of ingredients and nutritional balance.
