The Soup Queen

I got an email from Leslie this week who wrote: Hi! I wrote you a message last week about a Chinese Women's health soup with adzuki beans, black sugar, red wild rice, dates, peanuts and goji berries. Do you know this recipe and the amounts and when is the best time to eat it? Personally I have not come across this recipe before. Anyone here has heard about this soup or even eaten or cooked this before? Although I have not cooked it before, the rule about eating or drinking Chinese soups is that you MUST drink them warm and on the day you cook/brew it. Freshness is paramount in Chinese cooking (hence, fish must still be alive and jumping in aquariums before it is cooked etc. though I feel that is a terrible fate for the poor fish!). That idiosyncrasy of the Chinese aside, soups can be drunk any time of the day though if it is a nourishing soup, it may be drunk an hour or two before you go to bed (such as Dang Gui soup). If you have encountered this soup before, I would a...

This is one of those famously simple and easy to make dessert soups to round off a meal. Every Chinese would have grown up imbibing this nutritious red bean dessert. Red beans are like mung beans - full of goodness. What we call red beans is really Adzuki beans. They are also the most "yang" of all beans. They're tiny and hard red beans which when cooked, turns soft and delicious! Adzuki beans (Paseolus angularis) are rich in soluble fibre which, like oats, help eliminate cholesterol from your body. They contain magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc copper, manganese and vitamin B3. And the good news is, they also reduce blood pressure. Accordingly, these powerful beans possess inhibitors which disturb the development of cancer cells. It is no wonder that Adzuki beans are the "Mercedes" of beans. Here's how you cook Adzuki beans. 1/2 pound Adzuki beans 7 cups cold water rock sugar to taste (optional: 1/2 cup dried longan flesh) Wash beans and drain. Put them into...