Fish Maw 花膠

Fish maw is a delicacy in Chinese cuisines. It is really nice to eat when properly prepared and I really do love it ....... yummy!! It is more of a texture food and it does not have a fishy taste. Because of the high cost it is only found in the supermarkets before Chinese New Year.

When we first started buying whole fresh fish from the central market I started collecting the fish maws which was in June last year. Before that we usually get our fish from the frozen food supplier, we decided to buy fresh fish because they stopped importing the fillet of the Dory fish. They replaced it with some kind of fresh water fish which is not to our liking.

When I saw the fishmonger gutting the fish and the maw popping out I was instantly reminded of how yummy fish maw with sea cucumber was. My mum used to collect the maws too and having watched how she prepared it for storage and cooking, I decided to give it a try.

The maw had to be cleaned of all things that were not supposed to be there and the best way to do it is by bare hands with some help from the finger nails. Most of it were fats anyway with some gooey stuff here and there ........ yes your hands are going to smell fishy for awhile after that, hehe!!

After the cleaning is done it had to be dried under the sun for a day or two until it turn transparent golden colour. I dried mine with a length of roasting string and hang it on the clothes line. You can do it any way you like as long as it is hung.

Once it is dried I stored them in the freezer until a week or so before this Chinese New Year to do the second last process of frying them before cooking them to be eaten. Frying the fish maw need some skill in getting the oil to the right temperature and the only way is by trial and error. If the oil is not hot enough then it will not rise, if it is too hot it will rise suddenly and get burnt real fast with the oil splattering all over. Good luck! Before cooking it just soak it in water for awhile and it is ready to be made into a delicious yummy dish.

Not all fish have maws and not all fish maws are of the same quality. From my experience with market bought fish I would rate the threadfin salmon as the best, then barramundi and snapper being the lowest. I judged the quality by the colour and the thickness, the thicker it is the greater is the yummy feeling ........... starting your collection??