
Winter Melon and Beef and Fish Balls Soup
Winter Melon and Beef and Fish Balls Soup
Soup Name:
Winter Melon and Beef and Fish Balls Soup
Chinese Name:
冬瓜湯 (dōng guā tāng)
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Another simple soup with a few ingredients you can pick up at your local grocery or wet mart. The winter melon is usually more readily available during the warmer months in HK, but beef and fish balls are in season all the time (yah, in the frozen section of your friendly supermarket). Use the simplest balls, that being beef and fish balls without any surprises on the inside (Taiwanese styled fish balls usually have exploding surprises, so avoid these). The flavors of the balls (mainly salt and whatever other marinades they use) will seep out and make your soup tasty, so don’t add salt unless you’ve tried it first. You can make this soup in about thirty minutes by simply throwing all the ingredients together. In this case, I separated the peel from the flesh so that the melon could soften quicker. In “old fire” wintermelon soups, I will keep the peel attached – but this is really up to personal preference.

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Total time: 45 mins
Serves: 6 servings
- 1 large slice of winter melon, sliced with skin off (but the peel is also boiled as part of the soup)
- 10 precooked beef balls
- 10 precooked fish balls
- 2 L of water
- Start boiling your soup water
- Wash the winter melon skin and then peel the skin off the winter melon and cube the remaining winter melon flesh
- Rinse the beef and fish balls in warm water
- When the water boils, throw all the ingredients together
- Boil on high for 30 minutes
- Serve and enjoy!