Traditional Chinese Name: 冬瓜雞腳湯 (dōng guā jī jiǎo tāng)
Introduction:
The feet of the chicken are one of the Chinese’s most interesting “unwanted” parts of the chicken (after the bottom parts). It’s so versatile that the Chinese use chicken feet in soups, stews, dim sum and other dishes. I remember back in the days when I was a young lad that my parents would go to the Western super markets and get chicken feet by the bags for a whole dollar. It’s definitely not as cheap anymore because of the influx of demanding chicken feet eaters, but still an affordable, tasty and collagen packed ingredient. This wintermelon soup is simple to make and if you’re a single gal (or guy) you can make it in a one person pot. My husband really liked this soup and gobbled all the feet. Thanks for the clean up job, sweetie!
Amount serves: 5-6 large soup bowls (around 300 mL each)
Soak the gingo biloba and lotus seed in warm water for 10 minutes
Rinse and cut off the nails on your chicken feet
In a small pot of boiling water, blanch your chicken feet for 5 minutes
Remove chicken feet from boiling water, strain and set aside
Boil your soup water
When the soup boils, throw all the ingredients together
Boil on high (covered) for 30 minutes, reduce to a medium boil for another 30 minutes (you can continue to boil or use a thermal cooker to keep it hot, as some people love their chicken feet super soft)
Serve and enjoy!
Any benefits?
This soup is excellent for cooling down the body and heat from hot summer days
Chicken feet is an excellent source of collagen and is low in fat
Any precautions?
Women in their first trimester of pregnancy should avoid as it is an extremely cooling soup and may cause contractions (you can add more ginger slices to “heat” up the soup)
Melon soups are best consumed within same day as keeping melon soups overnight or over an extended period will make the melons sour (and so will your soup!)
Traditional Chinese Name: 菜乾白菜湯 (cài gān bái cài tāng)
Introduction:
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!).
Amount serves: 5-6 large soup bowls (around 300 mL each)
Dish Name: Macaroni with Fish and Lobster Balls in Fish Broth
Introduction:
Using the broth and ingredients of my “Pumpkin, Corn and Chinese Yam in Fish Soup“, we boiled macaroni and various “balls” (regular fish balls, deep fried fish balls, star fish balls, lobster balls, and exploding fish egg balls) and served up lunch. The great thing with making soup in the early morning is that you can serve it at lunch (in disguise) and dinner. I separate the lunch soup into a separate pot and add the “ball” ingredients (because that really makes it more salty) and I like keeping the dinner soup more natural (or “ching” in Cantonese).
What Ingredients are required?
Serve 4-5 people
1 L any soup base in the soup repetoire (use the less herbal ones) 20 “balls” of any type of fish, beef, lobster balls 3 cups of any type of noodles or macaroni How do I prepare it?
Boil your water to cook either macaroni or noodles
Add 1 tsp of salt
Add in macaroni and noodles and boil until soft (or desired softness)
Rinse under cool water and set aside
After your soup is boiled, take about 1L and put in a separate pot
Add all the balls and boil on high heat for 10 mins
Add macaroni or noodles to a bowl and scoop out as much soup and balls as desired
Serve and enjoy!
Any benefits?
This soup serves as a great base for noodles or macaroni
It is very low in fat
A neutral soup that is ideal for the whole family
All the ingredients can be consumed
Any precautions?
Be careful of bones on the fish fillet if eating as a meal
The “balls” are usually salty in nature, so be sure to taste the soup first before adding salt
An assortment of “balls” for noodles and macaroni
Note: I bought the above assortment of balls from my wet mart and it cost around $50 HKD. The lobster balls were the most expensive, but some fish balls (esp the ones that come fresh and clumped together) can also be expensive.
Soup Name: Sweet Potato, Corn and Chinese Yam in Fish Soup
Traditional Chinese Name: 蕃薯玉米魚湯 (gān shǔ yù mǐ yú tāng)
Introduction:
This simple and slightly sweet soup is really ideal for kids and children. I originally made this as a base for a lunch (consisting of fish balls and macaroni) and the kids loved it! Soups are so diverse in that you can use it as a base for stews, congee, noodles and other Chinese dishes. Keeping it simple will allow you to diversify your “final” dish and get really creative!
A continuation of using leftovers (because you know how the holidays are!). Using the carcass of a whole turkey, including a lot of leftover meat, I stewed this delicious, wholesome and warming congee for the family.
It actually turned out way better than I expected and was delicious! I didn’t use the whole turkey shell, but instead used half (whole would have been too much and too big for the pot).
With only these two ingredients (turkey and conpoy), you’re able to make a wonderful congee base and add whatever you like – salted/preserved eggs, preserved veggies, eggs, pork floss, chives, anything!
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