Yangzhou fried rice

Rehydrate the sea cucumber: soak 48 hours changing the water at 24, simmer one to three hours depending on size, then soak another 48 hours with a water change in the middle.

Dice the sea cucumber finely, and roughly dice the shrimp.

Soak the dried shiitake and dried scallop 2 hours ahead, squeeze the mushroom out and dice it finely; fluff the scallop in a small blender.

Put the chicken breast and Jinhua ham in a bowl, drizzle with Chinese cooking wine and steam 20 minutes, keeping the liquid that collects to season the rice. Dice the ham and chicken finely.

Whisk the eggs until no obvious egg white remains.

Blanch the bamboo shoot, carrot and peas in boiling water about 40 seconds, since wok cooking is too quick to cook them through.

Heat the wok until smoking hot, add a few tablespoons of oil, pour in the egg and stir as fast as possible with chopsticks until crumbled into small bits, then squeeze the oil out with a spatula.

On high heat add the Jinhua ham, shredded scallop, shiitake, sea cucumber, shrimp and chicken and saute a couple of minutes to activate more flavour.

Add the day-old rice and keep stirring on high until grains dance at the bottom of the wok, then add the blanched vegetables and the egg and dribble in the steaming liquid.

Stir until well mixed, salt to taste, toss, and sprinkle diced scallion before serving.