1. In a pot, boil 1 litre of water. 
2. Cut the king oyster mushroom into big slices, about 0.5cm thick.
3. Turn off the heat and soak all the dried/canned mushrooms (lion’s mane, Shiitake and abalone mushroom) to remove any impurities, for at least 15 minutes or until they have softened.
4. Squeeze out any excess moisture from the mushrooms.
5. Set aside.

| Substitute mushrooms for more tofu and types of hardy vegetables. 

• Cut the Chinese cabbage, carrots, broccoli into smaller pieces, slice the lotus root and wash the snow peas.
• In a pot of boiling water, add in the Himalayan Sea Salt, and the vegetable oil. The salt gives the vegetable flavor and the oil helps preserve the colour of the vegetables after blanching.
• Blanch the vegetables in the boiling water for 1 minute before straining and set aside. Blanch one vegetable at a time.

• In your claypot or regular pot, add in vegetarian oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, sugar, vegetable stock, black pepper, sesame oil and corn starch and mix well.
• Bring the gravy up to a boil, then turn the fire off.
• Pour half of the gravy into a bowl and add the goji berries. Set aside to pour over the vegetables later. This ensures there is gravy at the bottom of the Poon Choi pot, and gravy on top.

• In the claypot containing half of the gravy, arrange the mushrooms, vegetables & protein.
• Next, pour the remainder of the gravy containing the goji berries on top of the vegetables.

| Traditionally Poon Choi is a simmering stew of 8 auspicious types of meats and vegetables. 

Do use a combination of 3 to 5 types of fresh and dried mushrooms to create a varied flavour and texture. 

In this recipe, I used a combination of 16 types of vegetables, mushrooms and protein to add maximum flavour.

When making Poon Choi it is important to have at least 8 different kinds of vegetables because the number “8” represents abundance and prosperity.