Buddha Jumps Over The Wall is also known as 佛跳墙 (Fo Tiao Qiang) in Chinese. It was a very famous dish for the Emperor during the Qing Dynasty. The reason why this dish is known as Buddha Jumps Over The Wall is there was once a scholar was cooking and preparing this dish next to a temple. The strong aroma of the dish spread over to the temple and one of the monks of the temple who was meditating was tempted with the nice aroma and jumped over the wall just to try this dish.
During the Qing Dynasty, this dish was packed with 17-18 ingredients in a pot. However in modern days, the dish can be simplified in many ways. For instance, we can simplify the dish with just 8-10 ingredients.
Below are the ingredients required for 4 – 6 pax for Modern Buddha Jump Over The Wall:
Soup Base Preparation:
- Chopped garlic
- Cooking oil
- Chicken frame, 1 frame
- Pork ribs, 300gm
- Yam Bean, 1 piece (medium size)
- 3 – 5 bowls of water
- Rock Sugar, 2 small pieces
- Pinch of salt
- Fo tiao qiang soup base, 1 pack (optional)
Main Dish Preparation:
- Pork slices, 8 – 15 slices
- Dried scallops, 10 – 20 pieces
- Dried oyster, 6 – 12 pieces
- Chinese Mushrooms, 10 pieces
- Enoki mushrooms, 1 bag
- Abalone, 1 can
- Yam, 1 piece (medium size)
- Black vinegar, 2 table spoon
- Chinese cooking wine, 6 table spoon
- Chinese cabbage, 8 – 12 leaves
- Chicken breast meat, 1 pieces
- Garlic, 3 slices
- 5 Spices powder, 1 tea spoon
- Frying powder, 3 table spoon
- Dark Soy Sauce, 1 tea spoon (optional)
The ingredients were prepared for this simplified version. There are many ingredients which are hard to get and not easy to prepare.
These ingredients can be replaced optionally for those who don’t like to have certain items in the soup.
I have decided to marinate some of the ingredients out of creativity. This recipe is not found on the authentic version.
First of all, to make the base of this dish, pan-fry some chicken frame and pork ribs with some garlic oil until it is half-cooked, then add in some water until half full. Boil the soup for 45 minutes. Once the soup is boiling, drain all the water and rinse the chicken frame and pork ribs. Fill in another half pot of water to be boiled again with the ingredients.
While waiting for the soup to be cooked, you can start to clean the dried scallops and dried oysters. Soak the scallops and oysters in some boiled cool water for about 10 minutes and drain the water to the cooking pot. This is to add some seafood aroma to the soup.
If you want to make the base of the soup more flourish, you can put a pack of instant Buddha Jumps Over The Wall soup base into the soup. The cooking of this soup will produce some oil mostly from the chicken frame and pork ribs. The best way is to flap off the oil constantly using a spoon.
For the main course preparation, pan fry the yam cubes with garlic oil until golden.
After that pan fry the chicken cubes which had been marinated with salt and pepper with frying powder. Optionally you can deep fried those chicken with cooking oil.
Once the chicken cubes are cooked place aside in a small bowl.
Marinate the pork slices with the 5 spices powder and some Chinese cooking wine. Soak the Chinese mushroom in the water and then cut them into slices.
To cook the main dish, we need a claypot.
Each layer of ingredients needs to be laid properly in sequence. Those that takes longer time to cook will be placed at bottom. Whenever you complete each layer of ingredients, pour in some soup base to cover the ingredients.
The middle portion are usually made of slices of pork and mushrooms.
The top part will consist of seafood such as abalones, dried scallops and dried oysters.
Make sure the top part of the seafood is not fully covered by the soup. Leave half of the top part uncovered by the soup to ensure the texture of the seafood is not overcooked and soaked in the soup. Top it with some Chinese cooking wine and let it cook for another 45 minutes.
Overall, to cook the Buddha Jumps Over The Wall dish is not that hard. The challenging part is on the preparation and time. The recipe that has been provided is a simplified and modified version that is made easy for home cooking. I hope you all will enjoy it.