Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea

Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea

Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea

Tea Name:

Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea

Traditional Chinese Name:

雪梨蘋果菊花清熱茶 (xuě lí píng guǒ jú huā qīng rè chá) 

Nature:  Cooling

Taste: Sweet and sour

(You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food tastes!)

For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.

When it’s hot, stuffy and the temperatures are blowing the thermometers through the roof, this deliciously sweet and tart tea is perfect for this type of weather!

The mercury hit 32 C yesterday and what better way to cool the body than with a cooling, sweet tea that can help reduce internal heat, clears and disperses dryness, and moistens the lungs and stomach.   

The amazing thing about this tea is that you can also enjoy the snow pear and apples as part of the tea.  With the right cook time of 10 minutes, parts of the fruit are still semi-crunchy!  So delicious!  And you don’t need to add any sugar or honey because of the natural sugars of the fruit.

 

What’s involved?

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 2 cups

Ingredients
Cooking Instructions
  1. Cut up your snow pears and apples into cubes, keeping the skin on.  This helps hold it together and not disintegrate, but actually, from a Traditional Chinese Medicine benefit perspective, it’s the skins that hold the most value!  I talk about this below a little more!
  2. In a stove top safe ceramic or glass pot, add all your ingredients together
  3. Boil on medium high for 10 minutes, or until it’s bubbling for at least a good 5 minutes to really get the flavours out
  4. Serve and enjoy!
  5. You don’t need to add any honey or sugars at all!  

Snow pear are amazing for cooling and moisturizing the body, targeting the lungs and stomach.  It’s perfect for yin deficiencies (which includes cough) and reducing fire in the body and lungs.

It’s actually the skin of the snow pear that has the most power!  That’s why I keep them on when I’m making a tea with them or a soup.  And they provide a good source of fiber for the body.

Alternatively, if you don’t eat snow pear skins when you’re having the fruit, I would suggest to keep the peeled skin to dry, or freeze in a ziploc to save for use in soups or teas, but you don’t need to eat them!

 

EQUIPMENT USED

To answer your questions on what equipment I'm using, I've built a section here where you can find and explore what I'm using to make soups.  Ingredients are a little harder, but I will do my best as I source them around.  However, you can always message me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, and I will reply and try to point you in some direction!  

A great help for fish or small bones in soups, including small ingredients such as barley, fox nuts, spices just to keep everything together.

A MUST HAVE in the kitchen!  Energy saving, cost effective, and perfect for busy chefs!  Check out my article here that explains it.

Another MUST HAVE in the kitchen for soups!  It's so fine that it will scoop off the top oil and foam layer when using meats in your soup!

I use these types of stove top safe tea pots to make most of my herbal teas!

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Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea

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Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea

Tea Name: Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea Traditional Chinese Name: 雪梨蘋果菊花清熱茶 (xuě lí píng guǒ jú huā qīng rè chá)  Nature:  Cooling Taste: Sweet and sour (You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food tastes!) For more...

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Soup Name: Green radish with carrots & corn in a Chinese Herbal Pork Broth Traditional Chinese Name: 紅青蘿蔔湯 (hóng qing luóbo tang) Nature:  Cooling Taste: Sweet and savory For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.My parents came home last night from a cruise...

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GIVE YOUR LOVE OF SOUP.

FOLLOW US AND SHARE.

Green radish with carrots & corn in a Chinese herbal pork broth

Green radish with carrots & corn in a Chinese herbal pork broth

Green radish with carrots & corn in a Chinese herbal pork broth

Soup Name:

Green radish with carrots & corn in a Chinese Herbal Pork Broth

Traditional Chinese Name:

紅青蘿蔔湯 (hóng qing luóbo tang)

Nature:  Cooling

Taste: Sweet and savory

For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.

My parents came home last night from a cruise from Italy and are jet lagging and there’s nothing more warming, homecoming, and beautiful than a familiar Chinese soup waiting for them!

I made an easy green radish, carrots, and corn pork herbal broth.  The trick to this soup is to really let it boil out.  I made it early morning and then pretty much let it sit in the thermal pot all day until dinner.  

TIP:  This soup actually tastes even better left overnight!  Don’t forget to boil it before you sleep and don’t open the lid or cover (this will ensure that everything is killed off and isn’t reintroduced, this is how they manufacture canned food and soups in large scale!).  Re-boil the next day and you can still drink it.

 

Traditionally in the Cantonese soup repertoire, this green radish and carrot soup is cooling and often recommended if you’re feeling heaty, want to cool the body, or it’s hot and humid in the summer and autumn months.

It is also commonly found as a dinner soup, where restaurants will serve it at the beginning of the meal known as “lai tong” (or aka, free soup).  You’ll find the bits of carrots and green radish chopped up and along with pork (or chicken).

What’s involved?

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 2-3 hours

Total time: 2 hours and 20 mins

Serves: 10 bowls

Ingredients
Cooking Instructions
  1. Boil both your soup water (3L) and another pot to blanch the pork bones in (enough to cover all the bones)
  2. Once your blanching water boils, gently drop in the pork bones and boil on high for 5-7 minutes, until the brown foam begins to form on top of the water.  You can turn off the stove at this time.
  3. Prepare your vegetables by peeling and chopping into large bite-sizes
  4. Once your soup water boils, transfer the pork bones to your soup pot.  You can either rinse them gently in the water, or do a water rinse under warm water to remove all the debris and foam stuck to the pork bones
  5. Drop in all the ingredients (herbs + vegetables) together
  6. Cover and boil on high for 30 minutes
  7. Transfer to a thermal pot for at least 2-3 hours
  8. Re-boil for 10 minutes prior to serving
If you’d like to quick boil this faster, I’d suggest cutting up the pieces smaller, almost cubed.

Be sure to also buy fresh, firm green radish.  You’ll know they’re fresh because they are super hard to touch and you can’t really squeeze them.  When they get soft, squishy (but not leaky), they’re already drying out and aging.

This combination of green radish and carrots are amazingly delicious!  Some people will also add white radishes, which makes the soup even more cooling, and corn is also a nice addition!  Enjoy!

 

Q&A

A huge thank you to my Instagram community for the questions as they also hugely benefit other readers who may be thinking the same thing!  

 

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GIVE YOUR LOVE OF SOUP.

FOLLOW US AND SHARE.

Chinese-Styled Cream of Corn Egg Drop Soup

Chinese-Styled Cream of Corn Egg Drop Soup

Chinese-Styled Cream of Corn Egg Drop Soup

Tea Name:

Chinese-Styled Cream of Corn and Egg Drop Soup

Chinese Name: 

玉米湯 (yù mǐ tāng)  

Nature:  Warm

Taste:  Sweet, Salty

For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.

There are as many versions of a Chinese-styled corn and egg drop soup as there are likely ABC soups!  This is a staple in lots of Cantonese cuisines, with a thinner consistency over an American Chinese version (which uses corn starch as a thickener).

It is also known as the “egg flower soup”, which I love!  Because the idea is that the egg drop flowers into the soup as you pour it in, giving it a beautiful non-uniform design inside the soup!

 

This is actually one of my dad’s favourites and you can find the very basic version of the soup, the Corn and Egg Drop Basic Soup here.  I remember having this very often as a kid, especially as it’s super easy to make, the ingredients are readily available, and it is delicious served on rice!!  It’s almost like a sauce, but not quite!

With this version, I’ve gone a bit Chinese with some of the herbal additives just because I wanted a slightly warmer take on it and definitely a heartier version with the potatoes because I know my kids love potatoes!  Honestly, I would recommend you tweak, build, or create whatever inspires you!  This is the beauty of cooking (versus baking… but we can save that debate for another day!). 

What’s involved?

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 8 bowls of soup

Ingredients
Cooking Instructions
  1. You can prepare all your ingredients first, primarily the onions, garlic, potatoes, and fresh corn on the cob
  2. Chop your onions quite finely into cubes
  3. Dice up your garlic
  4. Remove the ears from the corn and shuck the corn, taking only the kernels.  I tend to snap the corn in half first so that it stands on the flat side so I can just shuck it down (see video)
  5. Wash, peel, and cube your potatoes into bite-sized pieces
  6. In your soup pot, with a bit of oil and on low heat, fry the onions on low heat to cook and slightly caramelize 
  7. Once the onions are soft, throw in the diced garlic to fry for 5 minutes on low heat
  8. Add in all the shucked corn kernels and stir for 5 minutes
  9. Turn up the heat to high now and add 2L water (or chicken broth)
  10. Allow this to come to a boil
  11. Once it boils, add in your Chinese herbs and the cubed potatoes
  12. Add in the canned cream of corn at this point
  13. Cover the soup
  14. Be sure to stir this soup once in awhile to prevent any of the ingredients from sticking to the bottom
  15. Once that boils again, you can reduce the boil to a low heat, keeping it covered for 10 minutes to allow the potatoes to fully soften
  16. In a bowl, crack your eggs and scramble
  17. Gently stir the soup in circles as you drizzle the egg drop into the soup, allow the eggs to cook as it enters the soup and not in clumps
  18. Serve, garnish, and enjoy!

Tips:

  • This is designed as a quick boil soup which means that the ingredients are cut up quite small (so they cook quicker)
  • For a true warm soup, consider adding sliced ginger, sliced tangerine peels, and even sesame oil (which is delicious and fragrant!)
  • I tend not to use a corn starch thickener here, but this really quite personal.  If you do use corn starch, be sure to dissolve the corn starch in cold water first and gently pour into the soup and stir
  • You can use frozen corn as well (although it doesn’t taste as yummy, but still works!)
  • Be sure to continuously stir as this soup cooks as to avoid any ingredients sticking to the bottom and burning
  • SERVE WITH RICE!!  SO YUMMY!

CHECK OUT OTHER SIMILAR SOUPS

EQUIPMENT USED

To answer your questions on what equipment I'm using, I've built a section here where you can find and explore what I'm using to make soups.  Ingredients are a little harder, but I will do my best as I source them around.  However, you can always message me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, and I will reply and try to point you in some direction!  

A great help for fish or small bones in soups, including small ingredients such as barley, fox nuts, spices just to keep everything together.

A MUST HAVE in the kitchen!  Energy saving, cost effective, and perfect for busy chefs!  Check out my article here that explains it.

Another MUST HAVE in the kitchen for soups!  It's so fine that it will scoop off the top oil and foam layer when using meats in your soup!

I use these types of stove top safe tea pots to make most of my herbal teas!

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Tea Name: Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea Traditional Chinese Name: 雪梨蘋果菊花清熱茶 (xuě lí píng guǒ jú huā qīng rè chá)  Nature:  Cooling Taste: Sweet and sour (You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food tastes!) For more...

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GIVE YOUR LOVE OF SOUP.

FOLLOW US AND SHARE.

EXPLORE MORE

A Chinese Herbal Tea to Nourish, Heal, and Strengthen the Lungs

Tea Name: Nourishing, Healing, and Strengthening Chinese Herbal tea for the lungs (and cooling) Traditional Chinese Name: 羅漢果雪梨茶 (luó hàn guǒ xuě lí chá) Nature:  Cooling Taste: Sweet and sour (You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food...

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Tea Name: Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea Traditional Chinese Name: 雪梨蘋果菊花清熱茶 (xuě lí píng guǒ jú huā qīng rè chá)  Nature:  Cooling Taste: Sweet and sour (You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food tastes!) For more...

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Green Radish and Carrots Chinese Chicken Soup

Green Radish and Carrots Chinese Chicken Soup

Green Radish and Carrots Chinese Chicken Soup

Soup Name:

Green Radish and Carrots Chinese Chicken Soup

Traditional Chinese Name:

青紅蘿蔔雞湯 (qing hóng luóbo yù mǐ jī tāng)

Nature:  Cooling

Taste: Sweet and savory

For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.

Traditionally in the Cantonese soup repertoire, this green radish and carrot soup is cooling and often recommended if you’re feeling heaty, want to cool the body, or it’s hot and humid in the summer and autumn months.

It is also commonly found as a dinner soup, where restaurants will serve it at the beginning of the meal known as “lai tong” (or aka, free soup).  You’ll find the bits of carrots and green radish chopped up and along with pork (or chicken).

This soup is delicious, hearty, and tastes like home!  My family often prepares this and my (grown) children will always ask for it when I ask them what kind of soup they want 🙂

 

What’s involved?
Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 2 hours

Total time: 2 hours and 20 mins

Serves: 6 bowls

Ingredients
  • 3 pieces of boned chicken thighs, sliced, pan fried
  • 2 fresh green radishes, quartered and in 1-inch thickness
  • 3-4 small fresh carrots, sliced into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 handful of dried scallops
  • 7-8 dried longans
  • 5-6 dried red dates
  • 3 L of water
Cooking Instructions
  1. Begin to boil your soup water
  2. Optionally slice up your chicken thighs, I do this so that it cooks faster and there are smaller pieces in the soup to be served
  3. In a shallow pan, fry the chicken thighs under cooked and a lot of the skin and fat should render out
  4. Peel and chop up your radish and carrots.  I’m using a smaller cut this time around as I’m not boiling as long, but still want them relatively soft to be eaten
  5. Once your soup boils, drop in the meats, chopped vegetables, and herbs
  6. Cover and boil on medium heat for 2 hours
  7. No salt needed, serve and enjoy!
If you’d like to quick boil this faster, I’d suggest cutting up the pieces smaller, almost cubed.

Be sure to also buy fresh, firm green radish.  You’ll know they’re fresh because they are super hard to touch and you can’t really squeeze them.  When they get soft, squishy (but not leaky), they’re already drying out and aging.

This combination of green radish and carrots are amazingly delicious!  Some people will also add white radishes, which makes the soup even more cooling, and corn is also a nice addition!  Enjoy!

 

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Tea Name: Nourishing, Healing, and Strengthening Chinese Herbal tea for the lungs (and cooling) Traditional Chinese Name: 羅漢果雪梨茶 (luó hàn guǒ xuě lí chá) Nature:  Cooling Taste: Sweet and sour (You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food...

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Winter Melon with Chicken and Mushrooms Rice Soup

Winter Melon with Chicken and Mushrooms Rice Soup

Winter Melon with Chicken and Mushrooms Rice Soup

Soup Name:

Winter Melon with Chicken and Mushrooms Rice Soup

Chinese Name:

冬瓜雞湯飯 (dōng guā jī tāng fàn)

 

For more videos, visit us on YouTube.

Sometimes, you just want something simple, something warm, something soupy, but all-in-one.  

There’s a concept called “Soup Rice” in the Chinese food repertoire that basically is any type of rice served with a soup.  It’s quite popular in the Chiu Chou-style (where my mom is from, so we ate it all the time).  It’s different from congee because congee is boiled rice, but this is literally a scoop of rice dropped into soup.

 

“Soup Rice”, aka 湯飯, comes with a variety of soups!  It is also known as “Pao Fan” (泡飯) and is commonly found in Singaporean, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine (on top of Chinese).  Pao Fan itself means submerged rice, so theoretically, rice submerged in sauce, liquid, or toppings.

Did you know that the soup rice was traditionally served during the rice harvest season and made into large pots to serve the village? It was also seen as food of the poor. These days, soup rice can be found in many cuisines in Asia with a variety of soup bases, included lobster, dried fish, and a variety of vegetables!

Actually, most soups can be made into soup rice.  In general, there’s some protein, some vegetables, and a soup base. 

This is a simple chicken, mushrooms, with winter melon soup in rice.  The Chinese celery is to add a little more elevated flavors and the ginger is to balance the cooling winter melon, although that’s optional.

Serve up the soup as one giant pot on the table.  Then everyone can have rice in large bowls and ladle their own soups and ingredients inside!  So warming, so yummy!

 

What’s involved?

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 45 mins

Serves: 6 servings

Ingredients
  • 4 chicken thighs, chopped
  • 1 large slice of winter melon, peeled and largely cubed
  • 5-6 fresh shiitake mushrooms
  • 2 stalks of Chinese celery
  • 5 slices of fresh ginger
  • Chicken or beef broth stock
  • 2L of water
  • 3 cups of rice, cooked in rice cooker
Cooking Instructions
  1. In a shallow pan, you can pan-fry your chopped chicken thighs (skin down) to brown the skin.  You don’t need to add oil as the skin will naturally release oils.  Brown until crusted over and set aside.
  2. Begin to boil your soup water
  3. Prepare your winter melon by skinning and cutting into large cubes
  4. You can also wash and slice your fresh shiitake mushrooms and Chinese celery
  5. Once your soup water boils, you can throw everything into together, including the stock
  6. Boil on medium for 30 minutes
  7. Serve and top with rice!

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Tea Name: Nourishing, Healing, and Strengthening Chinese Herbal tea for the lungs (and cooling) Traditional Chinese Name: 羅漢果雪梨茶 (luó hàn guǒ xuě lí chá) Nature:  Cooling Taste: Sweet and sour (You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food...

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Fragrant Potatoes and Tomatoes in a Milky Fish Broth

Fragrant Potatoes and Tomatoes in a Milky Fish Broth

Fragrant Potatoes and Tomatoes in a Milky Fish Broth

Soup Name:

Fragrant potatoes and tomatoes in a milky fish broth (yup, fancy name!)

Traditional Chinese Name:

番茄魚湯 (fānqié yú tāng)

This name of 番茄魚湯 is literally the most staple name for any soup with fish and tomatoes in it.  Of course, get creative!

This soup is neutral in nature sweet to taste.

 

For videos, visit us on YouTube.

When you’ve got that milky broth going, you know you’ve got the soup base right for your fish soup.

It’s been awhile since I made a fish soup and my kids have grown up this pretty traditional Cantonese-styled soup from their grandma, so I decided to make it again in Toronto.

I wasn’t sure what type of fish I’d find at the supermarket for soup making, but it is pretty fully loaded!!   To be honest, you can use any type of fish for fish soup.  However, I would recommend using more of the bones parts of the fish.  The head is the best with the tail being second and then stomach and main body.  The head is packed full of calcium, nutrients, and collagen.  And when boiled out in soup, dissolves into the soup and gives it more of that milky disposition.  It’s truly amazing!  Read up on how to prepare the fish.

 

What’s involved?

Prep time: 45 mins

Cook time: 3 hours

Total time: 3 hours 45 mins

Serves: 8 bowls

Ingredients

Tips before you start!

  •  Pan-fry in ginger and oil (add scallions if you’d like) the first before you add it to the soup.  This will make it more fragrant and eliminate the fishy smell and taste.
  • Also pan-fry the potatoes on high heat, crusting all sides (doesn’t need to be fully cooked).  This will keep it together in the soup and prevent it from dissolving and disappearing in the soup (and makes it super fragrant)
  • Salt fish very lightly if you’d like.  For this version, I actually didn’t salt at all!  It turned out amazing and people can add salt afterwards as they like. 
Cooking Instructions
  1. .Start boiling your soup water in a soup pot on high heat
  2. Wash, clean, and pat dry your fish
  3. In a shallow pan, add in a tablespoon of oil, 8 ginger slices, and a bunch of largely sliced green onions on medium-high heat.  Let that brown a bit.
  4. Throw in your fish, browning as much of it as you can.  It doesn’t need to be fully cooked, just crisp the edges and meat on all sides.  Once done, you can turn off the heat.
  5. Once your soup water boils, add in the fried fish (best to put it in a soup bag to hold all the bones together and you can easily remove from the soup) along with the dried longans and dried scallops.
  6. Reduce that to a medium boil
  7. You can now peel and cut the potatoes into giant chunks
  8. In a shallow pan on medium-high heat, add a tablespoon of oil and brown all the sides of the potatoes, as crispy as you can get.  This crust will keep the potatoes in tack as it boils and softens.
  9. Once that browns, throw it into your soup.
  10. Cut up the tomatoes into large quarters and drop that into your soup as well
  11. You can then prepare the abalone and drop into your soup.
  12. Reduce to a low boil for about 2-3 hours.  I did 3 hours for this.
  13. By now, you should have a beautiful milky broth.  Throw in scallions for taste.
  14. Serve and enjoy!

My kids loved this soup!  It’s something they grew up with and eat the potatoes as part of the soup.

I normally don’t keep fish soup overnight, but somehow I wanted to save some for the day after and when I went back to reheat it, the soup was congealed!!  It was amazing!  This means that the collagen (and there’s a lot) has hardened and simply gently reheat and enjoy again!

For those who love eating fish heads, I also didn’t use a soup bag as the grass carp head was pretty large.  A lot of the meat does stay in tack and have separated from the bones, so you can “fish” for them at the bottom of the soup with a scooper!  Enjoy!!

 

For videos, visit us on YouTube.

EQUIPMENT USED

To answer your questions on what equipment I'm using, I've built a section here where you can find and explore what I'm using to make soups.  Ingredients are a little harder, but I will do my best as I source them around.  However, you can always message me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, and I will reply and try to point you in some direction!  

A great help for fish or small bones in soups, including small ingredients such as barley, fox nuts, spices just to keep everything together.

A MUST HAVE in the kitchen!  Energy saving, cost effective, and perfect for busy chefs!  Check out my article here that explains it.

Another MUST HAVE in the kitchen for soups!  It's so fine that it will scoop off the top oil and foam layer when using meats in your soup!

I use these types of stove top safe tea pots to make most of my herbal teas!

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GIVE YOUR LOVE OF SOUP.

FOLLOW US AND SHARE.