STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE
My mother used to boil Chinese watercress soup when the season of flu and cough was most prevalent. Though we were too young to understand its nutritional value, we were very satisfied to have a bowl of soup accompanied by a bowl of rice and some cut red chilli with light soya sauce as a dip for the pork.
TRICK OF THE TRADE
Watercress originated from the West. It is used as natural medicine to cure headache, eczema, cough and flu. This is because watercress has cooling properties and helps to dissolve phlegm and is good for cough. It helps to lubricate the lungs and skin and detoxify the kidneys.
The longer you boil the soup, the more its cooling properties will increase, making it more of a tonic and nutritional soup. In those days, watercress was sold with very long stems and the roots along the stems were very long. Now they come properly trimmed.
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WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS DISH
- It’s a good soup to drink if you’re down with flu! Watercress is a good ingredient that will help you fight the virus.
- It’s also easy an fuss free to prepare. Like lots of soups, it’s a ‘throw everything in and boil for a long time’ preparation.
HOW TO MAKE CHINESE WATERCRESS SOUP?
Wash the pork and chicken bones, and chicken feet.
Blanch the pork bones in a small pot of boiling water for 10 mins. Then add the chicken bones and feet to blanch for another 3 mins. Discard the water and rinse the bones thoroughly, using a knife to scrap off remaining blood clots.Separate the watercress leaves from the stalks
Discard leaves with black spots. Remove the tiny roots from the stalks if any. Wash in a basin with a tsp of salt to get rid of any mud, then rinse thoroughly.
- Watercress with black spots
- Removing the tiny roots from the watercress stalk
Place the pork bones, chicken bones together with all the watercress stalks in the large pot of boiling water (2.5 litres). Boil for 1 hr on medium high heat.
Next, remove all the stalks from the soup and discard. Then add in the leaves, sweet almonds, bitter almonds, chicken feet and honey dates and continue to boil over medium heat for another hour.
Lastly, add in the red dates and wolfberries and continue to boil for 15 mins. Ladle into bowls and serve.
MARKETING TIPS
- Buy Suo Shi Gu (锁匙骨 / “key bone”) or Bing Bang Ban (乒乓板/”ping pong bat”) when cooking soup with pork bones, which you can get from your local butcher at the wet market. These two cuts of pork are good for soups, because even after the boiling, the meat on the bones still taste good when eaten because there is some fats (but not too much) to keep the meat tender and yet not make the soup oily.
- Suo Shi Gu (“Key Bone”)
- Bing Ban Pan (“Ping Pong Bat”)
- Buy Indonesian pork (from the wet market) as tends to be leaner and sweeter than Australian pork, so the soup will not be oily.
- Buy red dates with seeds. Firstly they are sweeter. Secondly pitted red dates, if stored too long at the shops, may have tiny insects and spider webs forming inside the centre hollow of the dates.
PREP TIPS
- Blanch the pork bones to get rid of the blood clots. This removes the porky smell and ensure that the soup will not have a scum layer on top when cooked.
- Add salt to the water for washing vegetables. It helps to get rid of all the sand, mud and dirt more easily.
- BUT do not soak them in the salt water, otherwise, your vegetable will be very salty.
- Remember to discard the watercress stalks. The stalks are usually too fibrous to be eaten but they give a thicker and more flavourful taste to the soup.
- Don’t soak the wolfberries. Rinse them just before adding them into the soup otherwise they will become mushy.
COOKING TIPS
- More water can be added to the soup but it must be hot boiling water so that the temperature will not drop suddenly, affecting the cooking time.
- Red dates and wolf berries must only be added in during the last 15 minutes, because if you boil them for too long, it makes the soup a bit sourish.
ALTERNATIVES
- More nan xing can be added to the soup but not the bei xing because of its bitterness. The almonds will still very crunchy and nice to eat even though they have been boiled for so long.
- Add less red dates if you prefer the soup more savoury.
- Watercress soup can also be taken as sweet herbal drink ( ‘leong cha’) to dispel body heat. Simply boil the watercress leaves and stems together with red dates, nan xing bei xin and honey dates and ‘zhou fu tong’ ( soft dark brown sugar) for a shorter time (1 hr). Then discard all the ingredients, and drink the soup.
DIETARY MODIFICATIONS
- Egg-Free: No modifications needed.
- Fish-Free: No modifications needed.
- Gluten-Free: No modifications needed.
- Shellfish-Free: No modifications needed.
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Chinese Watercress Soup with Honey Dates
Ingredients
- 2 Bundles Watercress
- 600 gm Pork Bones chopped into bite sized
- 2 carcasses Chicken Bones
- 2-4 Chicken Feet optional
- 200 ml Water for blanching the bones
- 0.5 TBsp Sweet Almonds (Nan Xing)
- 0.5 TBsp Bitter Almonds (Bei Xing)
- 2-3 Honey Dates or mee zhou
- 6-8 Red Dates
- 1 TBsp Wolfberries
- 2.5 litres Water to boil the soup
Instructions
PREPARATION METHOD
- Wash the pork and chicken bones, and chicken feet.
- Blanch the pork bones in a small pot of boiling water for 10 mins. Then add the chicken bones and feet to blanch for another 3 mins. Discard the water and rinse the bones thoroughly, using a knife to scrap off remaining blood clots.
- Separate the watercress leaves from the stalks. Discard leaves with black spots and remove any tiny roots from the stalks. Wash in a basin with a tsp of salt to get rid of any mud, then rinse thoroughly in tap water.
COOKING METHOD
- Place the pork bones, chicken bones together with all the watercress stalks in the large pot of boiling water (2.5 litres). Boil for 1 hr on medium high heat.
- Remove all the stalks from the soup. Then add in the leaves, sweet almonds, bitter almonds, chicken feet and honey dates and continue to boil over medium heat for another hour.
- Lastly, add in the red dates and wolfberries and continue to boil for 15 mins. Ladle into bowls and serve.
Notes
MARKETING TIPS
- Buy suo shi gu (锁匙骨) or bing bang ban (乒乓板) when cooking soup with pork bones, which you can get from your local butcher at the wet market. These two cuts of pork are good for soups, because even after the boiling, the meat on the bones still taste good when eaten because there is some fats (but not too much) to keep the meat tender and yet not make the soup oily.
- Buy Indonesian pork (from the wet market) as tends to be leaner and sweeter than Australian pork, so the soup will not be oily.
- Buy red dates with seeds. Firstly they are sweeter. Secondly pitted red dates, if stored too long at the shops, may have tiny insects and spider webs forming inside the centre hollow of the dates.
PREP TIPS
- Blanch the pork bones to get rid of the blood clots. This removes the porky smell and ensure that the soup will not have a scum layer on top when cooked.
- Add salt to the water for washing vegetables. It helps to get rid of all the sand, mud and dirt more easily.
- BUT do not soak them in the salt water, otherwise, your vegetable will be very salty.
- Don't eat the watercress stalks. The stalks are usually too fibrous to be eaten but they give a thicker and more flavorful taste to the soup.
- Don't soak the wolfberries. Rinse them just before adding them into the soup otherwise they will become mushy.
COOKING TIPS
- More water can be added to the soup but it must be hot boiling water so that the temperature will not drop suddenly, affecting the cooking time.
- Red dates and wolf berries must only be added in during the last 15 minutes, because if you boil them for too long, it makes the soup a bit sourish.
ALTERNATIVES
- More nan xing can be added to the soup but not the bei xing because of its bitterness. The almonds will still very crunchy and nice to eat even though they have been boiled for so long.
- Dont add too many red dates if you want the soup to be more savory.
- Alternatively, watercress soup can also be taken as sweet herbal drink ( 'leong cha') to cool the body heat.
- In this case, both the leaves and stems are boiled together with red dates, nan xing bei xin and honey dates and 'zhou fu tong' ( soft dark brown sugar) for a shorter time like 1 hr. Discard all the ingredients, just drink the soup.