(Chinese recipes, prepare authentic Chinese food now!)
One of the functions that I seriously enjoy is attending Chinese wedding banquets, which in my opinion is quite a dream come through for serious foodies like myself–well, minus the uninspiring ceremonies and acts such as deafening Yum Seng (bottoms up in Cantonese) echoes and really bad karaoke performance by obnoxious and drunk guests!
If you haven’t been to one, I will tell you that Chinese wedding banquets are rather awesome in terms of food. Expect dishes upon dishes of really good food, typically comprising of 4-5 cold/hot appetizers first dish, follow by a soup (usually shark’s fin soup), a poultry dish (mostly chicken), prawn, fish, vegetables, rice/noodles, and wrap up with a traditional Chinese dessert. Eight dishes are usually served, but it’s not uncommon if you get up to 10 courses. You get the picture, guests will be eating wonderful Chinese food (non-stop) for about 60-90 minutes…
Without a doubt, my favorite dish is the first course. If you are in Malaysia/Singapore, this first dish normally comprises of some sort of jellyfish salad (yum!), fried fish sticks/crab claws or similar fried finger food, perhaps a small portion of Kung Pao Chicken or other stir-fry dish, and omelette with shark’s fin and crab meat. Only at wedding banquets that I get to savor omelette with shark’s fin and crab meat, one of my favorite egg dishes ever.
(I have to confess that I eat shark’s fin, but not on purpose, meaning I will never order one unless it’s already pre-ordered).
So when I stumbled upon some imitation shark’s fin at an Asian food store recently, I just had to buy a packet. The texture and taste of these imitation shark’s fin are exactly like the ones served at restaurants, which makes me wonder if restaurants use imitation shark’s fin, too?!
Anyway, here is my recipe for imitation shark’s fin and crab meat omelette. If you are like me and love wedding banquet foods, you should give this a try at home. Why? Let’s just say that I have thoroughly cracked the secret recipe and my version is as good as–if not better (loaded with a lot more crab meat!) than–what you get at restaurants. Plus, you can make your own little imitation shark’s fin and crab meat omelette cups like I did with my leftover cabbage…YUM!
Other Egg Recipes:
- Rasa Malaysia Omelette
- Thai Son-in-Law Eggs
- Malaysian Sweet and Sour Eggs (Eggs Masak Branda)
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 cup imitation shark’s fin
1 cup crab meat (freshly picked or frozen)
1/2 cup thinly sliced cabbage
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
3 dashes white pepper powder
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons cooking oil
Some chopped scallions
Method:
Beat 6 eggs in a big bowl. Add in all the ingredients above (except crab meat and cooking oil). Stir well. Heat up a wok and add in the cooking oil. Drop the crab meat into the wok and lightly stir it around for about 1 minute. Pour the beaten eggs mixture into the wok and continue to stir until the eggs start to cook. Break the eggs into small lumps/pieces and make sure they are completely cooked (but not overcooked). Toss in the chopped scallions, do a quick stir, dish out and serve hot.
Cook’s Notes:
- If you can’t find imitation shark’s fin, you can use glass noodles (also known as cellophane noodles or mung bean noodles) instead.
- I used freshly picked crab meat from a 1 1/2 pound crab. I saved the orange roes from the crab and top the omelette with them.
- You can also use lettuce if you wanted to make this dish into omelette cups.
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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
ur crab egg scramble looks so good, better than d hotels. i used to love wedding banquets but not since wedding dinners have swollen to 100, 150 tables n hotels simply don’t cook good chinese food as well as restaurants. at least in kk they don’t. n yes, i read somewhere tt nearly all restaurants use imitation sharks’ fins n pass them off as real - and ppl pay top $$ for fake jelly fins!
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RM, a fantastic recipe indeed. Far better than the restaurant version! You use real crab meat here - Bravo!
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I remember those chinese wedding banquets we call them lauriat(sp?) -one dish after another - love those cold appetizers… and the shark fin soup - one of my favorites. We also had a chinese restaurant back home (we’re cantonese but I don’t know why the restaurant was called Mandarin Restaurant) …and I had my fill of shark fin and birds nest soups.
Aside from the soups, I also looked forward to the fried pigeons (I think they call them squabs over here)
I always wondered why rice was served at the end of the meal?
Your crab meat omelette looks so tasty…I wonder if my Asian Market here has imitation shark fin.
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I remember one time one of my multiply’s contacts posted a recipe of imitation shark fin soup. It looked good. Your omelette looks good too
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Yeah!
I’m totally supporting you on the use of fake shark fins!
Plus the omelette looks so good anyways!
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I have never been to a Chinese but have heard of the feast that is prepared. One day… I pray :)
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Yum! That’s a recipe i really want to try, it looks delicious!
I’ve been to Chinese wedding banquets in the past and i agree it is a lot of fun…at least until they bring out the Karaoke machine!
The XO Cognac makes it much less painful!
;-)
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This looks great! I have never had this before (no wait, I may have when I was little?). My parents threw a Chinese banquet for us with 11 courses, because my dad insisted on inserting lobster… and crab… and fish and… but the plate of cold appetizers is one of my favorite parts of banquets. We should have consulted with you on the menu!!
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Love chinese weddings.. and sure missed them. Thanks for the recipe.. :)
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Chinese cuisine and banquet , no 1 in the world ( and beyond )
the ala jui har cha u show one here also damn good , ( without the drunkards )! but who can blame them coz the whole thing is called “eat liquor” right !
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I like this dish too but I’ve never thought of trying it out at home… Thanks for the recipe! :-)
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I support the use of fake shark’s fin :) My mom cooks this quite often. She uses glass noodles though. I’ve yet to see fake shark’s fin sold in Malaysia
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I went to my first Chinese banquet wedding a month or two ago, actually. It was amazing! And in between each course, there was some sort of entertainment - dancing from the bride and groom, dragons performing athletics or wandering around the room requesting red envelopes filled with good luck money, &c.
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We will soon we trying many of u’r wonderful recipes! U have a great blo, girl!
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mmm, makes me hungry. I would LOVE to attend a Chinese wedding banquet!
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I love kwai fah chi, have not eaten it since I stop ordering shark’s fin dishes. Must go find imitation one now!
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hey, one of my faves! in my kampung, we call this dish ‘guai fei chi’ named after one of the famous 4 beauties (shi da mei ren) in China
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yumm..imitation shark fin eh?..so what is it made off? gelatin?
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Whoa, as good as da real thing! I also like this. Some restaurants even have this entire dish on it’s own now 9with real sharks fin) and no longer come in “cold dish platter” format in weddings! Did you just eat this at a wedding?…hee heee
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Lovely blog and recipe. I think the only place that I know competing with Chinese wedding banquet is my current residence, Spain. Average 3-4 hours of continuous food and drink - (not counting the liquor and dancing time afterwards). If you get invited to one, don’t miss it!
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Hey there. I stumbled upon your site when I was searching for some Malaysian recipe.
I’m so happy that they ACTUALLY sell imitation shark fin. Can you please tell me which brand was the imitation shark fin from. Thanks!
P/S - Good job on the site :)
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Stumbled on your blog by accident. Loved your imitation shark’s fin and crab meat omelette recipe.
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mmmm…that sounds really good! I would have never thought to make a scramble - especially out of shark’s fin!
This reminds me chicken lettuce wraps which I love! Your recipe looks really light and tasty!
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very good indeed. pls keep it up so v can enjoy all the time. Thank you for the recipe
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Hi,
I’ve looking for the fake shark fins every where. Could anyone tell me where to buy this? This salad is soooo good. Thanks
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