Sunday, November 15, 2009

My cooking - Sha Sum, Yu Jok, South/North Almond, Fig, Pear with pork soup (沙參海玉竹南北杏無花果雪梨㷛豬腱))

Human body is really amazing. Not sure if you have come across that your body would sometimes send some signal for you to specifically drive you to take certain food. Yesterday, after the horrible buffet, I was actually in a very bad tempering mood. Didn't know why I was feeling for a soup with this combination, though I don't like the taste of 沙參玉竹 and the good sweet soup 清補涼 (directly translated as "clearing, nourishing and
cooling" and every parents often get this soup for their kids. So when I went to the Chinese
herbal pharmacy and got told of a better kind of 玉竹 called 海玉竹 which has a less sour
taste but it's a bit more expensive. So as to make soup taste better, I first slightly pan fried
the 1.5 inch diced pork but the important step is not to put all the diced pork altogether
as too much stuff in the pan would create a kind of sudden temperature drop (搶火) and it
would create a bit juice lost out of the meat into the pan and if there is some water on the
pan, you would get some unpleasant smell from the watery diced pork. Put only the diced
pork only to occupy 1/2 and not more than 2/3 of the pan area. However, as it's not a
western soup, this pan frying shouldn't be too burnt. Just slightly brown the surface of the
diced pork. Personally I don't prefer boiling the meat as a kind of rinsing out the juice in the
meat. I prefer keeping the original as much as possible. As the ingredients are quite sweet,
I put some golden ham to balance the sweet taste. This way you don't need to put salt to taste.
Then re the pear, better choose the Tien Jien ducky pear as it has a very nice strong aroma.
Remember to cut anything which is close to the nectar (those brown dots around the nectar
is the cutting boundary but I usually cut more. This way it will keep away the sour taste
from the nectar area. So after the soup, I felt a bit sleepy. There I went for a nourishing
sleep.....

7 comments:

Stella said...

This one is also my regular soup. However, I make it the easy way out, without pan frying the pork nor any salty ham. I only dump some apple and Tien Jin pear slices with 4 dried figs 4 fresh figs(from neighbor's fig tree) and some thin pork and that is it. No Sa Sum, Yuk Jok or south north almond. Next time shall try to add those.

in the sea said...

SS, fresh figs from your neighbour's fig tree? Good that you make good use of something around you.

Anonymous said...

I think if I make this soup I just put all the things at one time. thanks for telling how to cut the pear. I know why it is quite sour.

Stella said...

Yes SEA. We get fresh figs free, also fresh lemon and oranges(but very very sour). Fresh figs are quite expensive here and we don't get it from stores all the times.
The dried figs from Tak Shing Hong is about $3 per pack(8 oz inside about 20).

in the sea said...

I think after fig is told to be good for this or that and even good for killing cancer cells...etc., people are eating more figs. I recall when I was a kid, it's just only HK$0.50 for quite many figs. When I made this soup, just 3 big figs (semi-dried) are HK$8.5. SS, do you use the conventional semi-dried figs - whiter one with a fatter bottom? As you said 8 oz for 20, I guess it's the drier ones which is a bit brown and round and quite hard to chew. The semi-dried ones is about 1.5 oz for one, which is better for making soup than the smaller brown ones.

Stella said...

Yes SEA, fig is good for going to rest room too. But fig has high potassium like banana so not everyone is suitable to eat a lot(this is only according to my mom). Shall check later.
Yes I used the dried brown fig from Tak Shing Hong as it is cheaper.
The whiter and fatter fig the price is 50% more(for the same weight). Sometimes I am afraid of the white ones as they look too white to be natural. But you are right, the whiter ones are better. If not fresh fig from my neighbor then I use the white and fat figs.
I got from Trader Joe(one block straight from my house) the whiter and fatter fig. If Tak Shing Hong they only sell the dried and smaller brown figs.

in the sea said...

Actually I don't like fig much, but just my aunt to get the white one.