This soup is ideal for colds, flus and cough. If you’ve got a sore or scratchy throat, achy body, tiredness and/or headache – this soup is for you! From an Eastern perspective, the Chinese don’t recommend drinking chicken soup when you’re sick, which to me, sounds off, but you can’t argue thousands years of tradition through Chinese medicine. My herbalist recommended this relatively “neutral” soup for me and is considered 滋陰 (zī yīn), which means treating yin deficiency by reinforcing body fluid and nourishing the blood. If you look at the herb base, it’s pretty basic and ideal for most soups – the kicker is to add sea whelk (or conch or sea snail). You don’t need to add fresh sea snail (they can get pretty expensive if you buy them live from the wet mart), but definitely add pork. This soup ended up tasting delicious and sets a great base for adding vegetables of your choice – like corn, onions, or chayotes – all neutral vegetables.
What’s involved?
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 2 hours
Total time: 2 hours 15 mins
Serves: 8 bowls
Ingredients
1 pound of pork shank (or pork marrows and bones for confinement)
In a separate pot, blanch both the sea snails and pork in a pot of boiling hot water for at least 5 minute (to remove impurities, fat and scum), remove and set aside 2. Soak all the herbs in warm water for at least 10 minutes and rinse in warm water 3. Boil your soup water 4. When you soup water boils, add all the ingredients together 5. Boil on high for 30 minute and then reduce boil to a medium boil for another 1.5 hours 6. Serve and enjoy!
One of the more affordable seafood you can use for soups is dried sea snail. They come in thin, hard slices and add a sweet, sea-salt taste to the soup (similar to dried conpoys). Plus, these things are storage friendly and can be stored in your freezer or fridge for up to 6 months.
A typical neutral soup base for Chinese soups. The dried sea snails are interchangeable with dried conpoys, which is a great substitute if you can’t find sea snails. The dried versions produce similar tastes to the soup as they are both seafood and go through similar drying processes.
It's not a perfect science (still working to perfect it), but I'd say the methodology and thinking is sound 🙂
Would love to hear your thoughts!
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!
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Soup Name: Chinese pumpkin with sweet potato and tomato soup
Traditional Chinese Name: 三甘湯 (sān gān tāng)
Introduction: The name is quite interesting because I learned about this soup from my vegetable vendor in the wet mart in Hong Kong. The 3 (三 – sān) implies 3 keys vegetables ingredients, that being: Chinese pumpkin, sweet potato and tomatos. The base of this soup is rich in vitamins, extremely sweet and a neutral soup for the whole family to drink. You can add other ingredients to this vegetable soup pending your creativity and physical needs.
What Ingredients are required?
1 pound of fresh pork shank (optional if you want a vegetarian soup) 1/2 fresh Chinese pumpkin 5 fresh tomatoes 3 fresh sweet potatoes 10 dried longans 2 fresh onions 2-3 L of water 1 teaspoon of oil (optional to pan-fry onions) How do I prepare it?
Boil your soup water
Blanch pork in boiling water
Cut up pumpkin, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and onions into large cubes
In a shallow pan, quickly fry the onions (optional step, but it really enhances the flavour of the onions in the soup)
When water boils, add all the ingredients together
Boil on high for 30 minutes, reduce to simmer for another hour.
Serve and enjoy!
Any benefits?
Excellent soup for children (including the rich broth and hearty ingredients)
Soup is rich in Vitamin A, C, and beta-carotene
Ingredients are great for the eyes and aides in digestion
Although the name stipulates a clear pork bone broth, it is in fact, a herbal pork based soup. It is clear and brothy and can serve as a good base for addition of vegetables to richen the soup and make it more hearty. The greatest thing about this soup is that all the ingredients are readily available in your fridge/freezer if you stock up on it. The ingredients don’t need to be fresh, so you can whip up this soup during rainy, typhoon stricten days where getting out of the house is impossible. This neutral soup is sweet to taste and is very moisturizing to the body.
You’ll find many variations of the Pork Herbal Chinese Soup available as it’s a very common soup base. You can scroll below to find some suggestions.
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Tea Name: Sweet and sour snow fungus and cucumber salad (with garlic and red dates and goji berries) in a tart delightful mirin vinegrette dressing Nature: Slightly warming (due to the garlic, red dates, and vinegar) Taste: Sweet and sour For more videos, you can...
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