Happosai (八宝菜) is another Japanese Chinese dish similar to Yasaiitame stir-fry vegetables. Various vegetables, seafood, and pork are braised in a gooey savory sauce. It is a wonderful entree for dinner or a hearty lunch over rice.
Happosai is one of the staple dishes at any Japanese Chinese restaurant, local or fancy. Like Mabo Tofu, Shrimp in Chili Sauce, and Gyoza dumplings, it’s always on the menu. Happosai may not be a star dish on its own, but it is a great thing to order at restaurants because it goes well with any other dish and contains so many vegetables.
Happosai literally means 8 treasure food, but it doesn’t require 8 different ingredients. The more vegetables and seafood, the better the dish becomes. The usual vegetables for Happosai are Nappa cabbage, carrot, onion, wood ear mushroom, bamboo shoot, and baby corn. Then add shrimp, squid and pork for meat. Finally, boiled quail eggs are the signature ingredient of Japanese Happosai. It may be hard to find them, but it will be worthwhile to complete the dish. All the ingredients are put together in a salty starchy sauce packed with Umami flavor from juices coming out of the seafood. Also, if you can find Chinese-style chicken broth granules at an Asian market, we recommend to add this to the sauce so that it tastes even richer.
Because of the number of the ingredients, there will be a lot of prepping and cutting, but the cooking part is quite simple. Braise all the vegetables and meat in a wok, season, and thicken the sauce with starch. It is very healthy and an ideal dinner dish for you and your family. Go hunt for quail eggs and try this delicious Happosai!
Happosai
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Ingredients
- 1/4 Nappa cabbage small to medium
- 1/2 carrot medium
- 10 snow peas
- 4 Shiitake mushrooms
- 4 oz pork thinly sliced
- 4 oz shrimp
- 2 oz squid optional
- 6 quail eggs boiled
- 1/2 Tbsp oil
- 2 tsp Katakuriko potato starch
- 1 Tbsp water
- 1/2 Tbsp sesame oil
Seasonings
Instructions
- Mix all the seasoning ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
- Prepare the rest of the ingredients. Cut cabbage into 1" width pieces. Slice carrot thinly. Remove strings from snow peas. Slice mushrooms diagonally. Cut sliced pork into bite-size pieces. Devein shrimp. Make crossing shallow cuts on the surface of squid and cut into 1/2" width pieces. Cook quail eggs in boiling water for 4-5 minutes and remove shells.
- Heat a wok with oil at medium heat. Cook pork until its color changes. Add cabbage, carrot, and mushroom, and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add snow peas, shrimp, and squid, and cook until the shrimp and squid are cooked through.
- Pour mixed seasonings over the vegetables. Stir-fry for a minute. In a separate small bowl, mix potato starch and water, and add to the wok. Cook until the sauce is thickened, stirring constantly. Add boiled quail eggs and sesame oil, and remove from heat. Serve immediately.
