| Chinese soups |
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| Food | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 10 September 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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photo credit: swanksalot
Soup is an essential part of diet in every Chinese family. Due to the high humidity in most Asian countries, having a bowl of soup before and after your main meal is rather refreshing. If you have ever ordered some braised noodles in a typical Hong Kong restaurant, you may notice a small bowl of soup (nothing more than chicken broth with chopped spring onions sprinkled on top) being served with your plate of noodles. It is believed that having a bowl of soup “cleanses” you after you have eaten something strong-flavoured. For most, soup is considered to have exceptional nutrients as it is comforting, easy to eat and with additional herbs and other healthy ingredients – such as the famous ginseng chicken soup – it has to be good for you.  Photo credit: avlxys
Soup is my all-time favourite food. It doesn’t matter what ingredients are used. A bowl of steaming soup just reminds me of home, of seeing my mum whipping out a million dishes from the kitchen, and saving the huge bowl of soup for last because she wants it to be piping hot when we have it. I am not a big water drinker, but soup? 5 gallons later and I’m still going! Chinese soup is usually light in consistency. No cream is used, although if you go to wedding banquets or fancy dinners, you might get served soup of a slightly thicker consistency – with corn flour playing a role. Any ingredients used in soups are eaten if you can. We don’t use blenders to blitz all the vegetables. Common meat base includes chicken, pork and certain freshwater fish. To strengthen the flavours, dried seafood (shrimps, oysters, scallops, cuttlefish) are also added. Below are some of my favourite soups: Lotus root, Chinese mushrooms, black moss and black eyed beans soup  photo credit: avlxyz
This is our family’s ‘Chinese New Year Special’. All the ingredients are boiled with chicken and dried oysters. After a few hours, the ingredients are sieved out and additional seasonings (oyster sauce, soya sauce) are put in to turn them into a dish on its own. The soup is nourishing and rich in flavours. I can just about picture myself having some whilst watching the Chinese New Year programmes…. Dried pak choi and pig’s lungs soup This might not be for the faint-hearted as pig’s lungs aren’t everybody’s cup of tea, but honestly the soup tastes SO good (and the cooked lungs too), you won’t even remember the process of cleaning the lungs in the beginning…. My mum taught me to clean pig’s lungs when I was little. It’s quite a fun task as you just “connect” the lungs to a plastic water pipe, and off you go! Water goes in, the lungs fill up, and my job is to pump the water back out. Good way of learning CPR! This step should last for at least 2 hours in order to get rid of everything that shouldn’t be there. Once done, the lungs are chopped into bite-sized parts, pat dried and seasoned with cracked pepper. They are then cooked with dried as well as fresh pak choi before serving. Watercress, snakehead fish and dried duck gizzards soup It is a common belief that snakehead fish, a freshwater fish, has wound-healing powers, so this is a popular dish for any people who have had surgery (or paper cuts, if they so demand!). Using fish in soups requires articulate skills so at least the majority of the fish stays intact. Soups filled with fish flakes are not that appetising. I cannot recall the traditional hardcore way of doing this, we cheat and use a little muslin bag specially madefor making soups. The whole fish is pan-fried for a good 15-20 minutes on a low heat before it is bagged and dropped in the pot. We tend to hunt for the “older”, tougher watercress for soups as they tend to have more flavours and can hold themselves for the length of cooking time. As for the dried duck gizzards, well that is something of a hidden gem in Hong Kong. I can count in one hand the times I have seen shops selling dried duck gizzards. You need to go to the markets in suburban districts and look for them. They taste great and stand as a healthy alternative to meat as there is zero fat in them. Pig’s stomach, bean curd sheets and peppercorns soup  Photo credit: avlxyz
To make this soup, you will need pig’s stomach (for 4-6 people serving, using 2-3 stomachs), black and white peppercorns, a few pieces of pork ribs, a needle and thread. That’s right, needle and thread! This is my mum’s way of making it and I think it works a treat, so thought I could share with you all. The pig’s stomachs should be cleaned thoroughly by rubbing salt and washing them under a running tap a few times. Dry them and, similar to wearing a glove, hold a stomach in 1 hand and give it a good crackling on a very hot pan with no oil. This intensifies the flavour and assures there are no slimy bits left on the stomachs to ruin the soup. Once all stomachs are fried, get your needle and thread, grab a handful of peppercorns and seal them inside each stomach. They now resemble somewhat like saggy beanbags. Job done! Off they go to the pot with pork ribs and bean curb sheets. When done, take out the stomachs, carefully remove the threads and throw away the peppercorns. Cut the stomach into strips and serve them with some soya sauce and cracked pepper. The best thing for winter! Do you have a favourite soup? If so please share! Until the next time, my fellow food fanatics, cheerios!
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