Soup – the Chinese way

During a family holiday to Hong Kong, our tourist guide told us a story why Hong Kong people look younger then other nations. They look 8 years younger than their actual age because they boil their soup for 8 hours. Malaysian Chinese boil soup for 3 hours, so look 3 years younger. Then those who use cream soup that takes only 3 minutes to cook in microwave ‘ting’! (Do your own maths, haha!)

Chinese likes to boil soup in very slow fire or double boil. There is an old Chinese saying, “to win a man’s heart, a woman must first learn how to cook a good pot of soup”. My hubby didn’t grow up with soup as part of their meals. But I did. Lucky for me, my mum, typical Chinese, cooks yummy soup. Once a month, she will double boil chicken essence for the whole family or ‘dong kuai’ soup for the ladies only, believe to promote good health.

I love to drink soups too, especially when it’s burning hot. Can feel the heat travel from my throat to the stomach. So satisfying. My children also like soup especially when having rice for dinner. I will pour soup on their plate of rice and then each get a bowl of soup to drink later. Early days I used to boil chicken herbal soup ( ‘tong sum’, ‘kei chi’, red dates, ‘wei san’, ‘yuk chuk’). Then to add to the variety of soup (still herbal), I boil chicken ‘pau sum’ soup and dried abalone soup. My eldest daughter (Alyssa) must have thought those are the only soups.

Alyssa didn’t like any other soup than herbal soup (her mummy lor). Thanks to this restaurant that we used to go after church that serves soup as part of their lunch set (RM9.90 only for a set). From then on she was more willing to try other types of soup like lotus root soup, ground nuts and old cucumber soup. I also boil daddy’s favourite salty veggie tofu soup. Lately I tried using roast pork bone with dried veggie (and some red dates). Very, very nice. Almost forgotten, my children like ABC soup also (carrot, potato, onion).

Tonight having dried abalone soup. (Mummy forgot to buy fresh ingredients yesrterday).