Old Cucumber and Carrots in Pork Broth

Old Cucumber and Carrots in Pork Broth

Old Cucumber and Carrots in Pork Broth

Soup Name:

Old Cucumber and Carrots in Pork Broth

Traditional Chinese Name:

老黃瓜胡蘿蔔湯 (lǎo huáng guā hú luóbo tāng)

This soup is slightly cooling in nature, sweet to taste, and helps clear excess water from the body.

 

For videos, visit us on YouTube.

Another soup for the damp, wet spring season! You’ll find a recurring theme within Spring soups, mainly consisting of an assortment of beans and certain vegetables that are diuretic. This is a simple soup with a pretty strong “bean” taste – so use less beans if it’s for kids. Mine found it a bit too “beany” and didn’t really like it that much. Consider adding corn to sweeten it up, but the adults lapped it up. It’s an easy to drink soup that is excellent for our health during this time of the year, especially when it’s wet and humid. You can also use chayotes, onions and fish for variation.

What’s involved?

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 2 hours

Total time: 2 hours 10 mins

Serves: 8 bowls

Ingredients
Cooking Instructions
  1. In a small pot of boiling water, blanch your pork for 5 minutes. Scoop out and rinse of any excess foam.
  2. Start boiling your soup water.
  3. Prepare old cucumber and carrots. Keep the peel for the old cucumber to prevent disintegration.
  4. Soak the dried tangerine peel in warm water for 5 minutes and with a sharp knife, scrape the outer peel (where it’s darker in color) to remove the outer layer of the skin (which is most bitter).
  5. When you soup water boils, add all the ingredients together
  6. Boil on high for 30 minutes and reduce to a medium boil for another 1.5 hours.
  7. Salt to taste – enjoy!
Any benefits?
  • This soup is perfect for Spring or humid conditions when there is a lot of moisture in the body
  • It is great for clearing damp heat since it’s cooling in nature
  • Fit for the whole family, this soup eats like a meal!

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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Old Cucumber

Old Cucumber

Old Cucumber

Ingredient Name: Old Cucumber

Traditional Chinese Name: 老黄瓜 (lǎo huáng guā)

Nature:  Cooling

Taste:  Sweet

Looking to build your Chinese soup pantry?  Watch this video on “7 Basic Chinese Soup Pantry Ingredients” to help you get started!

 

Thank you to a follower who asked about what “kind” of cucumber is an “old cucumber”!  After some research, it’s basically, the aged on-the-vine-regular-cucumber.

The key is to keep it aging ON THE VINE until the skin is a dark orange brownish hue.

Old cucumbers are usually yellow, brown, and orangey in color and have quite a thick and wrinkled skin (makes sense given that it’s aged).  The inner flesh is almost white, but slightly yellowed as well.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, old cucumbers are cooling and help clear heat and moisture, and eliminate toxins from the body.  They are best used in spring soups where the weather is damp and humid.

Generally, old cucumber soups found in the Cantonese cuisine are made with beans (yellow, mung, red, black eyed) or barley or lentil.  These ingredients also help dispel moisture and are perfectly suited as spring soups when days are getting warm and humid.

 

 

 

How do I prepare it?
    I will gently wash the outside skin with warm running water.  I tend to keep the skin ON when using old cucumbers so it doesn’t disintegrate as it softens in the soup.  The skin is quite tough and hard, so it does the job in holding the cucumber flesh together in the soup.
    Alternatively, you can remove the skin and cut into smaller squares for quick boil soups as well.
Where can I buy it?
      • In most Asian supermarkets, you will find this unique type of cucumber
      • In wet marts in Hong Kong, simply ask the produce vendor and they will point you to it
      • Be sure to buy large, firm and heavy in weight cucumbers
Where can I buy it and cost?
      • Old cucumbers cost around $20-25 HKD each
Any benefits?
      • Old cucumber is good for clearing heatiness (cooling effect) and has a diuretic effect
      • They help dispel moisture and clear toxins in the body
      • Extremely high in dietary fibre, Calcium and Iron
      • It is also a good source of Vitamins A, B6 and C
Any precautions?
      • Old cucumbers are known to be a “cooling” food
      • Women who are pregnant or menstruating should take caution when consuming this

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