Fish Maw and Lean Pork Soup comes with exclusive soaked fish maw

Prepare the ingredients: measure the fish maw. Here we are using wild yellow croaker fish maw, but you can use any fish maw you have on hand.

First, rinse the fish maw, then take a large basin of water (preferably purified water) and put the cleaned fish maw into it. Use as much water as possible, covering the fish maw and a few centimeters above it. Cover with a lid and soak overnight. If the weather is hot, you can put it in the refrigerator to soak overnight.

Take out the fish maw that has been soaked overnight and wash it again. At this point, the fish maw starts to soften a bit, but it hasn't begun to swell yet. The fishy smell of adult fish maw is relatively mild; if you smell it now, there's only a faint fishy odor. Boil water in a pot, add two tablespoons of cooking wine, take the soaked fish maw out of the water, add a few slices of ginger, and steam on high heat for 5–8 minutes as shown in the picture. (The original photo was accidentally deleted after being taken, so here is a roughly similar picture for reference.)

Take the steamed fish maw out, quickly rinse with water to cool it down, then soak it in ice water or directly in cold purified water, and then place it in the refrigerator's fresh-keeping compartment for later use. (Doing this ensures that the nutrients of the fish maw are not lost.) The weight of the rehydrated fish maw is about 3-4 times that of the fish maw before rehydration, which means it is fully rehydrated.

Soak the sea cucumber until it is fully expanded and set aside.

Trim the sinew off the lean meat (here, using pork tenderloin).

Lean meat can be sliced or cut into pieces.

Pour water into the pot, add 2 tablespoons of cooking wine, 2 sections of green onion, and 2 slices of ginger to blanch.

Blanched meat slices or chunks are taken out and rinsed clean. As shown in the picture.

Prepare a clay pot, pour in water, add chunks or slices of meat, and begin simmering the soup with sections of green onion and slices of ginger.

Prepare all the auxiliary ingredients, and clean the yam, Solomon's seal, and black beans for later use. Put the red dates and goji berries together separately.

After the soup comes to a boil, first add the yam, Solomon's seal, black beans, and red dates, and continue simmering.

After a few minutes, cut the sea cucumber into sections and put them into the soup pot.

After a few minutes, open the lid and add the soaked fish maw, then continue to simmer for half an hour.

Rinse the goji berries, and add them 10 minutes before taking the pot off the heat.

Finally, add salt, and a delicious and nutritious fish maw and lean meat soup is ready. Let's replenish all that collagen! 😄