The Soup Queen

This recipe is thanks to Erina who saw me having a coughing fit yesterday and recommended that I try her mother-in-law's recipe. She said her son had been coughing too and after drinking this concoction 3 times a week, he had been cured. For this cough cure, you will need some slices of American Ginseng and 3-4 dried honey dates . These go into a pot with 2 bowls of water. Simmer until only half the water remains. This could probably take 20 minutes or so. Drink warm. American Ginseng (panax quinquefolius) or Pao Sum (in Mandarin) is one of the milder ginsengs from the ginseng family. It is milder because it is yin or cooling in nature. It was first discovered by the Jesuit priests in Canada around the 18th century. This root herb was shipped in massive quantities to China - it was a valuable export in the 19th century. Hence the name American Ginseng because it really comes from America. The taste of American Ginseng is sweet and slightly bitter but is highly suitable for the Hear...

OK, this isn't really a soup. It's more of a dish than a soup but I want to share this recipe with everyone because my first time trying this recipe was truly a success. And if I can cook this dish, so can you. "Chai boey" is a Hokkien term - we Cantonese call it 'choy mei' or 'leftover vegetable' (literal translation). It's a tangy, salty, sour dish of mustard greens boiled with meat (usually roasted pork/ roast duck). It's great on its own and even better eaten with rice. In the olden days, it's called 'chai boey' because people really used leftovers in this dish. My aunt makes this dish each Chinese New Year eve, once we're done with the reunion dinner. In our reunion dinner, we'd have lots of leftover dishes - roast meats, minced pork balls, etc. One should have leftovers for Chinese New Year as this signifies that we would have "plenty" for the coming year. It's symbolic most times. For the chai boey dish,...

I've written about using fresh wai san in porridge , thanks to the recipe passed on to me by my regular vegetable-seller in the Lip Sin wet market. A couple of weeks ago, I chanced upon fresh wai san again in the market and bought it for cooking porridge. But the wai san was huge, so I used up only half. The vegetable-seller told me I could keep the other half of the wai san in the fridge for a week or so, provided I wrapped it up in newspaper. One of those days while rummaging through my fridge for something to cook, I saw the wai san again and this time decided to try it in a soup. I had read somewhere (forgotten where now...tsk tsk, must be old age) that it is good as a soup too. The recipe is simple (ah, I am a big proponent of simple recipes, ya) and just needs 3 major ingredients: freshly peeled and sliced wai san, 4-6 de-seeded dried red dates and about 400 gm of pork ribs, blanched. As usual, bring a pot of water to boil. Put all 3 ingredients into pot; bring to a rolling b...