Soaked dried sea cucumber braised in stock and soy with spring onions fried slowly to gold, until it's soft, glossy and full of scallion.
What makes it scallion-braised sea cucumber
Dried sea cucumber, soaked and cleaned over days until soft and springy.
Spring onions fried slowly in oil until golden, their oil the base of the sauce.
Braised in good stock with soy, then glossed so the sauce clings.
Where it comes from
The cold waters off the Jiaodong peninsula give China's most prized sea cucumbers, the spiky kind, and Shandong cooks have long been the masters of reviving them from dried. Sea cucumber has little taste of its own; the art is in the stock and the scallion oil it soaks up.
The dish is a pillar of Lu banquet cooking, and was made famous far beyond the province by Shandong chefs in Beijing restaurants in the twentieth century.
How it varies
With fresh sea cucumber
Quicker and cheaper now that it's farmed along the coast.