Luoyang Yan Cai (Steamed Radish in Nourishing Soup)

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This imperial dish is served first during the Water Feast. It is said that when Empress Wu Zetian (the first Chinese empress) governed the nation in the Tang Dynasty, a farmer discovered a huge radish in Luoyang and he presented it to the empress. The royal cooks steamed it with delicacies of all kinds, making it taste like succulent bird's nest soup (Yan Wo in Pinyin). The empress was greatly satisfied and praised it as the 'succulent mock bird's nest soup'. The dish is made by steaming radish threads and then mixing them with chicken threads, pork threads, sea cucumber threads and seaweed threads in a nourishing pork soup. It not only tastes fresh and delicious, but also appears like a beautiful peony blossom.