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Photo: Chinese watercress soup with sweet corn and pork by Phoebe Lim, CC BY 2.0, cropped and resized.
Slow-boiled soup 老火湯
Watercress and pork bone soup
西洋菜豬骨湯sai1 joeng4 coi3 zyu1 gwat1 tong1
Traditionally eaten to clear heat. Best in hot, dry or "heaty" spells. Watercress is cool and is the bulk of the pot.
Good for traditionally believed to clear lung heat and ease a dry throat in autumn and winter.
- 20 minprep
- 2 h 30 mincook
- 6servings
- One potAutumn, Winter
Eat at ? Start by …
Ingredients
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Fresh: local Asian grocerAbout
- 3¼ quarts3 LWater
3 pantry items with a checked Amazon match. Buy the fresh produce and meat locally or on Weee!.
Method
- Soak the watercress in salted water for 15 minutes, then rinse leaf by leaf. Cut it in half.
- Soak the tangerine peel and scrape off the pith. Rinse the kernels and dates.
- Put the meat in cold water, bring to a boil and let it bubble for 3 minutes. Drain and rinse off the scum.
- Bring the water to a boil and add the watercress only once it is boiling, so it stays sweet, not bitter.
- Add the meat, dates, kernels and peel. Boil hard 20 minutes, then simmer covered on low for 2 hours.
- Skim off any fat and season with salt just before serving.
Who should go easy
Go easy if you feel cold or have loose stools. Watercress is cool.
Traditional Chinese food therapy, not medical advice. Ask your doctor if you are pregnant, on medication or unwell.
Ingredient natures from Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society, "中醫食療——食物種類分析" (Dr Lam To-yee, registered Chinese medicine practitioner, 2022). How we judge a soup’s nature.
Watch someone make it
Home cooks on YouTube. Opens right here.
