Watercress soup with bitter almond and honey dates

Ingredients: Pork ribs, watercress, bitter almond, honey dates and red dates.

Radish, Kelp and Pork Ribs Soup

I bought this chinese recipe book, Invigorating Therapeutic Recipes , for a while but had never tried any of the recipes before. Since i have 90% of the ingredients at home, so i decided to give this recipe a try. The ingredients are pretty basic, besides the usual radish and pork ribs, this recipe call for kelp.

As i find kelp have this "fishy" smell, so i was quite concern that the soup will turn out weird. Nevertheless, i still give it a try. To my surprised, the soup turned out great, but partly due to i did not add too much of the kelp, as i was concerned that it might ruin the whole pot of soup. And despite that i had omitted the ginger, vinegar and wine, we didn't really taste the "fishiness" of the kelp.

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Radish, Kelp and Pork Ribs Soup (modified recipe)

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Ingredients

- one white radish, medium size

- one green radish, medium size

- one carrot

- 5g Dried kelp, soaked in cold water until it expand and soften

- 500g pork ribs

- 1.5 litre of water

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Method

1) Blanch pork ribs in boiling water, remove and drain.

2) Cut all radishs and carrot into about 1 inch rounds.

3) Put all ingredients into water and stew for 2hours.

4) Add pinch of salt for seasoning and serve.

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* I did not follow the recipe entirely, because recipe only call for white radish, but i have added green radish and carrot too. That was because my initial intention was to boil 3 carrots soup and i do not want to waste my ingredients, neither do i want to save them for other dish, so i just threw everything in. At the same time, recipe also indicated to add a few slices of ginger, some vinegar and millet wine into the soup, which i believe is to remove the "fishy" smell of kelp. As i do not have millet wine and my DH don't like vinegar, so i omitted these two. As i wanted a soup to remove "heatiness" so i omitted the ginger too. As chinese believes that ginger will help to keep the body warm.

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According to the recipe, this soup helps to replenish calcium and prevents osteoporosis.

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Medical values of Radish:

Regulates digestion, expels phlegm, heat and toxin. But take note that radish and ginseng cannot be consumed at the same time.

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Medical values of Kelp:

Also to expels phlegm and heat from the body.

Lotus Root, Pork Ribs, Walnut Soup

Lotus Root, Pork Ribs, Walnut Soup (serves 4) - Using Thermal cooker

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Ingredients

- lotus root (about 2 - peel than sliced into 1.5cm thick)

- Dried black fungus (about half cup, soak in water for about 20-30min till soften)

- walnuts (about 1 cup)

- wolfberry (about 1 tbs)

- 400g pork ribs

- about 8 small chinese bowl of water

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Method

1) Just blanch the pork ribs for about 5min, than wash.

2) Put all ingredients into pot and boil for 30min, than transfer to thermal pot. Leave to cook for 2-3hr. Ready to serve.

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Verdict: The soup turned out to be very nice. Mildly sweeten due to the wolfberry, nice even without salt. Initially i wanted to add red dates, however i ran out of that, so i added wolfberry instead.

**The above ingredients are in approximation, because i do not usually weigh my ingredients when it comes to soup. I just throw a little bit of each to cook :)

Rainbow Beans Soup

ABC Soup - 马铃薯汤

Whenever we eat "zhi cha", they will have this soup call the "ABC soup". Because it consist of C = carrots, B = ? and A = ? hmm... don't know why it's called the ABC soup...

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Anyway, my soup consist of carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and pork ribs.

Black Bean Chicken Soup - 黑豆鸡汤

Ingredients:
Black chicken, Black fungus, Black beans, dried oysters, wolfberries and red dates.

Will update the benefits of the ingredients later.

六味汤

Ingredients:

500g of chicken meat (or pork)
5 bowls of water

Rhizoma Dioscoreae (淮山)
Arillus Longan (龙眼干) - Dried Longan
Semen Nelumbinis (莲子) - Lotus seed
Bulbus Lilii (Ba Hup)
Semen Euryales (Xu Sa)
Rhizoma Polygonati Odorati (玉竹)

Method:
1) Boil the chicken with water for 1 hour.
2) Put in all ingredients and boil for further 3-4 hours.

Winter Melon Soup - 冬瓜汤

Soup, soup and soup! I love soup! This is Winter Melon soup. Very simple ingredients. Only using chicken, winter melon, red dates and wolfberries. It will be even nicer if i were to add some chinese ham (火腿), but just ran out of it.

Bittergourd Soup - 苦瓜汤

Yes, this is another soup again. Because when i was young, my parents always boiled soup for me. So drinking soup has became part of my life. However, as compared to my parents, i don't boiled soup that often. But since i have more time these days, i will try to boil at least 3 times a week. Because both of us loves drinking soup!

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Ingredients: Bittergourd, pork ribs, dried oyster, red dates and wolfberries.

This soup is good for clearing heatiness.

American Ginseng Tonic Soup - 西洋参补汤

haha... took pictures of herbs, took pictures of cooking but left out the most important picture and that is the finished products!

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Dang Shen 党参

American Ginseng Tonic Soup

Ingredients:

38g Rhizoma Polygonati Odorati (玉竹)
23g Rhizoma Dioscoreae (山药)
19g Fructus Lycii (Wolfberries - 枸杞)
19g Arillus Longan (龙眼肉)
3g Radix Panacis Quinquefolii (西参)

This soup is good for people with stressful lifestyle.

On top of that, i have also added 15g of Dang Shen.

Dang Shen - Nourish blood and vital energy.

Soup mix is from Eu Yan Sang

Pork ribs, Black fungus & Lotus root soup - 排骨黑木耳莲藕汤

Another nutritious and popular cantonese soup, using pork ribs, chicken feet, lotus root and peanuts.

Old Cucumber Soup - 老黄瓜汤

This is one of Cantonese favourite soup - Old Cucumber Soup - 老黄瓜汤. My mum always boil this soup for us when i was young. Now that i am married, i boil this soup for my husband. This soup is good for clearing heatiness and taste very good too!

Old Cucumber Soup recipe - 老黄瓜汤

Ingredients

500g Pork spare ribs
1 old cucumber - medium size
6 dried oyster
12 red dates
half cup of wolfberries
some dried octopus
about 6 bowls of water

Boil over low heat for 3 hours

Good for : Clearing heatiness

Watercress Soup - 西洋菜汤

Our dinner for last night. We had this very nutritious HK style soup, Watercress with duck kidney and pork ribs, Fried fish on banana leaf and fried eggs.
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Ingredients for the soup:

2 bunch of Watercress, 4 duck kidneys, a few slices of ginger, 1 tbs Sweet almond, 1tbs Bitter almond, 3 honey dates, 1 luo han guo, 300g pork, some pork bones and some dried orange peel.

Good for: Clearing heatiness, clearing heat from lungs and prevent cough.