Braised Abalone with Duck

History

This dish is recorded in the Suiyuan Shidan (隨園食單), the manual of cooking and gastronomy written by the Qing poet Yuan Mei and first published in 1792. Yuan Mei was a gastronome who, after resigning his post in 1748, bought the Sui Garden (Suiyuan, "Garden of Contentment") in Nanjing and spent his later years there compiling the food knowledge that became the book.

In the book's abalone (鰒魚) entry, Yuan Mei surveys several ways the mollusk was prepared. He notes abalone is best sliced thin and stir-fried, and describes an "abalone tofu" made in the household of Yang Zhongcheng with shaved abalone in a chicken-broth-and-tofu soup finished with aged zaoyu. He then records this dish: Prefect Zhuang (莊太守) prepared large chunks of abalone simmered with a whole duck — "a very unique dish." Because the abalone is so tough it cannot be broken by the teeth, the method requires three days of simmering over fire before the flesh becomes tender enough to break apart.

The recipe is therefore documented specifically as the method of Prefect Zhuang's household, as recorded by Yuan Mei. Beyond that attribution, the historical record I could source does not document an origin story for this preparation, does not place it in any particular coastal or regional cuisine, and does not characterize it as a status dish. Those elements are omitted for lack of a source.

Ingredients

• 1 whole abalone (鰒魚)
• 1 whole duck

Instructions

1. Take a large piece of abalone and braise it whole together with an intact duck. Simmer gently for three days until the abalone flesh becomes tender enough to break apart easily. This method, employed by Magistrate Zhuang, yields a dish of distinctive character.