Buddha Jumping Over The Wall (Fo Tiao Qiang)

"Buddha jumping over the wall" is the name of this dish in Chinese. It is the most precious Fujian banquet dish for its fancy ingredients and unique way of cooking. It is said that the dish was fist sold in Ju-Chun-Yuan restaurant, in city at the Zing Dynasty. The feature is to steam almost 20 ingredients such as shark's fish, pork tendon, scallop abalone, chinese ham.. etc., in a large wine jar over low heat for 3-4 hrs, they became very tender and generate wonderful meaty smell. A learned man thus wrote a poem about the dish as: "slightly open the lid, the wonderful meaty smell spread around the neighbourhood, here comese a Buddha just jumped over the wall, gave up his belief for a taste of the dish" The dish is named "Buddha jumping over the wall" since.

Ingredients:
600g taro (or potato)
1 pork leg
1/2 chicken
200g chicken ham
1/4 pork stomach
150 dried pork tendon, soaked

10 dried chestnuts
10 red dates
4 chicken gizzards
5 dried mushroom (soak & soft)
15 dried mussels
4 scallops
10 slices of canned abalone
150g shark's fin, soaked & treated
10 cup of chicken-stock soup
4 tbsp oil
2 yellow onion
2 slices of ginger
4 tbsp plain flour

Seasoning:
3 tbsp wine
2 tbsp soya sauce
4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Peel taro and cut into large pieces. Mix with soya sauce, then deep-fry until golden brown. Put into a jar.

2. Cut pork leg and chicken into 1 inch pieces, boil in boiling water, place in a jar.

3. Pace other ingredients into the jar in the following order:
pork stomach, scalded tendon, soaked chestnuts, red dates, chicken gizzard (cut into 2), mushroom, dried mussels, ham strips, soacked scallops (torn into pieces), abalone slices and soacked shark's fin on top.

4. Stir fry 2 yellow onion and 2 slices of ginger with 4 tbsp of oil, add 4 tbsp of flour and stir-fry flour until light brown. Add stock, bring to a boil. Season with soy sauce and salt. Discard ginger and green onion. Pour soup into jar, shake slightly, cover with cellophane paper, and put it in a big soup pan to steam for 4 hours.

5. Put covered jar on table then remove cover and serve.