Dried and Fresh Bok Choy in Pork Broth

Dried and Fresh Bok Choy in Pork Broth

Dried and Fresh Bok Choy in Pork Broth

Tea Name:

Dried and Fresh Bok Choy in Pork Broth

Traditional Chinese Name:

菜乾白菜湯 (cài gān bái cài tāng)

This soup is cooling in nature and sweet to taste.

Visit us on YouTube for more tea and soup videos.

This cooling soup is really sweet and delicious! With a combination of dried and fresh bok choy, it’s a basic soup with minimal ingredients. You can adjust the “coolness” of the soup by adding more or less ginger, but it’s great to help fight off fever, a heaty body, an inflamed tongue, a mouth full of cold sores or canker sores. Really, no salt needed – just be sure to rinse and wash the dried bok choy super well, or you’ll have lots of added protein (the little flies that always seem to be embedded during the curing process!).

Bok choy is the cooling ingredient in this soup.  It’s one of the cooler ingredients relative to its cabbage cousins and targets the stomach and large intestines.  It’s also a great for clearing excess water and detoxifying the body, including aiding in digestion. 

Dried bok choy is more salty (and even sweet) relative to it’s fresh counterpart.  It’s actually super tasty and they have the same properties (even when dried!).

 

What’s involved?

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 1 hour 30 mins

Total time: 1 hour 45 mins

Serves: 6 bowls of soup

Ingredients

Cooking Instructions

  1. Blanch the pork shank in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
  2. Soak the dried bok choy in warm water for 15 minutes
  3. Rinse the dried bok choy in running water 2-3 times (to remove the dried bugs that get embedded during the curing process)
  4. Boil you soup water
  5. When the water boils, add all the ingredients together
  6. Boil on high for about 30 minutes and set to medium boil (covered) for another hour
  7. Serve and enjoy!

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Bok Choy with Chinese Ham in Pork Broth

Bok Choy with Chinese Ham in Pork Broth

Bok Choy with Chinese Ham in Pork Broth

Tea Name:

Dried and Fresh Bok Choy in Pork Broth

Traditional Chinese Name:

菜乾白菜湯 (cài gān bái cài tāng)

This soup is cooling in nature and sweet to taste.  It targets to support the lungs and stomach.

Visit us on YouTube for more tea and soup videos.

One of the best smelling Chinese soups I have ever made.  It is deliciously sweet and extremely beneficial to the lungs with it’s perfect combination of Chinese herbs that target to moisturize, heal, cleanse the lungs.  The dried bok choy and preserved Chinese ham are a great and common Cantonese combination for soups.

This soup is more heavy on the Chinese herbs side.  A majority of the herbs listed below target the lungs primarily, clearing heat from it, and dispersing phlegm and fluids from the body (mulberry root, codonopsis root, and the luo han guo).  This soup is great if you’ve got a wet cough, feeling heavy in the chest with a lot of congestion (in the nose, too!), and feeling heaty in the body (very scratchy and swollen tongue).  This is a sign of excess yang (or yin deficiency).   

You can find some of these Chinese herbs in the soup section of Asian supermarkets for sure.  They are definitely available in your Chinese herbal shops and also your Chinese doctors (who also carry the shops as part of their practice).

 

 

What’s involved?

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 1 hour 30 mins

Total time: 1 hour 45 mins

Serves: 6 bowls of soup

Ingredients

Cooking Instructions

  1. Blanch fresh pork shank in a pot of boiling water
  2. Boil your soup water
  3. Prepare carrots and corn by cutting into edible pieces
  4. Rinse well in warm water the dried bok choy and all of the additives (other ingredients)
  5. When water boils, add all the ingredients together
  6. Boil on high for 30 minutes and reduce to simmering for another 1.5 hours

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Bok Choy

Bok Choy

Bok Choy

Ingredient Name:

Bok Choy or Chinese Cabbage

Traditional Chinese Name:

白菜 (báicài)

This ingredient is sweet to taste and cooling in nature. 

For soup videos, visit us on YouTube!

 

Bok choy is  cooler ingredients relative to its cabbage cousins and targets the stomach and large intestines.  It’s also a great for clearing excess water and detoxifying the body, including aiding in digestion. 

Dried bok choy is more salty (and even sweet) relative to it’s fresh counterpart.  It’s actually super tasty and they have the same properties (even when dried!).

How do I prepare it?

    Simply wash well under running water to remove any pesticides and bugs.  You can cut off part of the end as well as these are soil plants and tend to have a lot of soil on them as well.
    Look for white stems and dark green leaves.  The bok choy should be firm and crispy.  These vegetables are high in water content so should stay quite firm if they are fresh.  Over time, they will shrivel, become wrinkled, and dry out.  So just pay attention to freshness.

Where can I buy it?

      • You can buy bok choy in most supermarkets these days are they are now grown and harvested in many countries around the world. 

What is the cost?

      • These vegetables aren’t very expensive and usually cost around $3-4 HKD per catty

Any benefits?

  • Bok choy is a good source of calcium, vitamin C, and is high in antioxidants
  • It is a high fibre and low calorie vegetable
  • It is sustainable in growth in a variety of weather conditions and therefore can easily be grown almost anywhere in the world
  • This is a cooling ingredients, so can help reduce heat in the body

Any precautions?

      • Since it’s cooling (is a yin ingredient), take caution to consume if you’ve got excess yin or yang deficiency

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Bok Choy (Dried)

Bok Choy (Dried)

Bok Choy (Dried)

Ingredient Name:

Bok Choy (Dried) or Chinese Cabbage

Traditional Chinese Name:

菜乾 (cài gān)

This ingredient is sweet to taste and cooling in nature. 

For soup videos, visit us on YouTube!

 

Bok choy is  cooler ingredients relative to its cabbage cousins and targets the stomach and large intestines.  It’s also a great for clearing excess water and detoxifying the body, including aiding in digestion. 

Dried bok choy is more salty (and even sweet) relative to it’s fresh counterpart.  It’s actually super tasty and they have the same properties (even when dried!). Drying the bok choy dates back from Chinese history as a way to preserve the vegetable after the harvest season and has a very long shelf life once dried if stored in cool, dry places.  It becomes somewhat brittle and hard, but has a very fragrant smell to it and is even more delicious when softened and cooked.

There are actually a lot of uses for dried bok choy.  You can use them soups, stews, stir fry, even in dumplings (chopped up)!  They are a versatile ingredient and pretty common in Chinese cuisines.  They have somewhat of a chewy texture (it’s all that fiber), but soften super nicely in soup and stews.  

 

How do I prepare it?

    Soak in cool water until it’s completely softened and limp (like it flows with the water).  Be sure to completely soak and rinse it a few times as the curing process tends to attract a lot of flies and you’ll see them surface out as you wash these vegetables.

    Where can I buy it?

        • Dried bok choy is most common in Asian supermarkets

    What is the cost?

        • Dried bok choy isn’t very expensive cost around $3-4 CAD per pack of dried bok choy

    Any benefits?

    • Bok choy is a good source of calcium, vitamin C, and is high in antioxidants
    • It is a high fibre and low calorie vegetable
    • It is sustainable in growth in a variety of weather conditions and therefore can easily be grown almost anywhere in the world
    • This is a cooling ingredients, so can help reduce heat in the body

    Any precautions?

        • Since it’s cooling (is a yin ingredient), take caution to consume if you’ve got excess yin or yang deficiency

        • Be sure to thoroughly soak them and rinse them in running water a few times.  These tend to harbor so many little bugs that the children will find!

    Looking to build your basic Chinese Soup Pantry?

    Check it out in my video to learn more!

     

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