Fu Yong Hai – Chinese omelet

by Pauline Chavannes de Senerpont Domis · December 10, 2019

Foe Joeng Hay (Fu Yong Hai) is a Chinese omelet recipe. It derives from Cantonese cuisine and literally means ‘hibiscus flower egg’.

According to wiki, “hai” in the recipe means that crab must be part of the ingredients, but many Fu Yong Hai recipes are without crab.

There are several variations of this recipe. Beb Vuyk has 3 in her Groot Indonesisch Kookboek in her egg recipe chapter.

Today I make Fu Yong Hai #1 from her book. This variant contains shrimp. Beb’s Fu Yong Hai III is a vegetarian version with mushrooms. Sounds delicious too, but I will make that one another time.

In the Netherlands, Fu Yong Hai is known because of loads of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in this country. Usually, they serve this omelet with tomato sauce but this recipe Fu Yong Hai #1 from Beb Vuyk is topped with a ginger sauce. Sounds great, let’s get started.

This dish is ready in 40 minutes and enough for 3 people.

Fu Yong Hai I #500 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 401.

Fu Yong Hai consists of a large omelet, covered with a sauce of shrimp and different types of vegetables.

Ingredients

For the omelet:

5 eggs
juice of 1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons oil
salt
pepper

For the filling:

200 grams of shrimp
2 to 3 slices of bacon
2 cloves of garlic
the yellow part of 2 leeks
4 to 5 small cooked carrots
3 to 4 tablespoons green peas
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup

Sauté the bacon in the oil, add the sliced garlic and leek and sauté with the shrimps.
Stir in the peas and the tomato ketchup.
Cook the omelet on both sides, fill it, double-fold it and cover it with one of the ginger sauces (see Chapter Sauces).

The sauces chapter says:

Ginger sauce #481 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 385.

3 slices of ginger root
2 tablespoons of vinegar
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
2 teaspoons of cornflour
1 dl broth

Cook the broth for about 1/4 of an hour with the ginger root.
Then add vinegar, sugar and soy sauce and thicken the sauce with the cornflour.

You actually make two recipes: the stuffed omelet and the ginger sauce. The photo above shows the ingredients for the filling and sauce together. When Beb Vuyk talks about soy sauce, she means salty soy sauce (soy sauce asin).

Instead of carrots (my husband is allergic to them) I use a sweet potato that I don’t cook for too long. The photo shows an orange, but I still have a bowl of sweet purple potato in my fridge. That looks even better.

I start with making the large omelet (5 eggs!). I also start the broth for the ginger sauce. I use 3 pieces of ginger (3 slices). I cook thid gently in 1 dl stock. I use half a stock cube for this. In the meantime, my omelet is slowly simmering in my non-stick pan. I make omelets always on low heat.

I put the third pan on the heat and fry the bacon with the leek and garlic without oil. The bacon is fatty enough.

My (canned) peas and the potatoes are already cooked and my shrimp are too. I only add these ingredients at the very end.

I do not fry my omelet on both sides because it is a large and heavy slice that easily breaks. Besides the wet interior ensures that the filling stays in place.

When the omelet is almost done, I scoop the stuffing on top and fold it in half.

Now back to the ginger sauce. I finish it with the soy sauce, sugar and vinegar. When all sugar is dissolved the cornflour can be added. I dilute the flourwith a tablespoon of water so that it does not clump.