Celebrity chef Eric Teo's recipe for pen cai

The key to creating the perfect pen cai, or poon choy in Cantonese (literally, "basin dish"), is its chicken stock, says celebrity chef Eric Teo.

The 49-year-old culinary consultant says: "You need about six litres of chicken stock for this recipe as most of the ingredients, from the mushrooms to the dried oysters and fish maw, are cooked in this stock.

"Pen cai is about layering the ingredients, and with the stock, you are layering the flavours as well."

While the dish generally includes dried scallops and dried abalone, Teo uses fresh Japanese scallops and canned Australian baby scallops to not only add colour and texture to the meal, but also to cut costs. He buys these ingredients - along with vegetables - from Bukit Merah's FairPrice supermarket. He goes to Tiong Bahru wet market to buy prawns.