The abalone feast

My aunt always has the privilege to travel due to her nature of work. Everyone in my family including myself are often found envious of her. Who doesn't right? 

The chance to travel around the world, observing different cultures, the opportunity to enjoying various cuisines. Just too much for a city boy like me to even contemplate! Even the thought of sitting in the plane itself is exciting!

But only my aunt resented her job. She has her reasons. It's energy draining, time consuming and most of all you couldn't spend time with your love. Particularly if you have a boyfriend. But I guess everyone have their fair share of love story right? So let's keep that aside and talk about the more important ones: Food.

Yea, you didn't read it wrongly. Food. My aunt never fails to bring back something, mostly edible :) This time, on a trip to Australia, my aunt bought back a few Australian abalones. Citing that she got it from a friend who owns an abalone farm in the outskirts of Aussie. Cool right? 

So my grandmother decided to throw an abalone feast for the sake of trying these Chinese delicacies which most of us refer to as chewing rubberbands. 

To be honest, well-prepared abalones doesn't have the texture of rubber. Yes, well-prepared ones are often tender. Chewy but never laborious to chew. Claiming that abalone taste like chicken doesn't seem right. In fact, it taste nothing like chicken that's for sure! Don't believe me? Try chewing a piece of each and differ shade yourself luhh.

Sitting at the side, we have stir-fry spinach and abalone with oyster sauce, the star of the night.  Everyone was eyeing on those ingots! Accompanying the abalone feast was a personal favorite of mine, braised abalone, sea cucumbers and mushrooms.

Soy sauce chicken from Crystal Jade, sweet & sour prawn with roes and all. Those were side dishes if you have to ask me. The best part of the dinner has got to be the superior above superior broth! The broth of chicken, pork ribs, dried scallops and little abalones were left boiling for the whole day.

The taste was simply indescribable. I give full marks for the umami favour!  The sweetness from the meat coupled with the scallops and abalone is just beyond words. I personally drank 3 HUGE bowls. Not even the dregs were spared. The meat were the best part of the soup. The tenderness and the savory essence derive from hours of boiling and simmering. Let's just say nothing was spared as mentioned. Almost everything ended up in my tummy!

A big THANKS to my grandmother! In my opinion, no one cooks better than her! I repeat NO ONE, especially when it comes to abalone. She's the best cook in the world!

There you have it. An abalone feast truly fit for a prince! Until then, I wonder what will my aunt bring back on her next trip...