In my family, Kiam Chai Ark is one of the traditional dishes eaten during lunch on the first day of Chinese New Year. It's salty and sourish and goes extremely well with white rice or brown rice.
Ingredients:
- 1 duck (about 1.7 kg)
- 1 pig trotter
- chicken bones
- sugar cane
- 8 nutmeg seeds (cracked with seeds slightly pounded)
- 10 -12 peppercorns, smashed
- cinnamon stick, 3 inches
- 3 star anise
- mustard greens (kiam chai) (1 kg)
- 10 small onions
- 8 sour plums
- salt
Directions:
1. Soak mushrooms (preferably overnight)
2. Cut up duck into smaller pieces. Boil duck in water to get rid of some of its wax. Discard water.
3. Boil another pot of water and pour boiling water over pig trotter to wash it.
4. Put pig trotter and duck in a pot and boil awhile. Scoop up the scum that forms at the top and discard. Set aside the water.
5. Boil about 2.5 litres water in another pot.
6. Put in chicken bones and sugar cane and boil over small flame for about 1 hour.
7. Discard bones and cane.
8. Wrap up nutmeg seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon and star anise in a small muslin cloth.
9. Put pig trotter, duck and spices in muslin cloth into chicken broth. Then add mustard greens, mushrooms, onions and sour plums. Lastly, add in the water from 4 until the duck and mustard greens are complete submerged. Bring to boil, then simmer for 1 hour.
10. Discard spices and add salt, to taste.
Serve very hot with rice.
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