The weather in Singapore is unforgivably hot and with the addition of our spicy food culture, we can fall sick easily with all the "heatiness" in our body.
Soup is almost a daily dinner affair in my family as my kids love the soup I made. The old cucumber soup I am sharing today, is "cooling" to the body and a nutritious soup. However,in the perspectives of chinese physician, food that is too "cooling" can be another problem. Therefore, it is common to add in a few red dates to make the "cooling" more subtle.Red dates=hot,Old cucumber=cooling
Due to a constraint of time, I do not have the luxury to spend hours to brew the soup to achieve "老火汤" quality. Therefore, I would recommend you to invest in a pressure cooker that can achieves "老火汤" quality in just 30 mins.
All my soup recipes contains no MSG and chicken seasoning/cube. Dried scallops and cuttlefish are added to bring a richer flavour to this soup. For the type of dried scallops, I strongly recommend you to buy only japanese scallops which are more flavourful.
Recipes ( Prep 30 mins, Cooking time 30 mins )
( Serves 4 )
Ingredients:
1 old cucumber (750g), cut in chunks
250g pork ribs, blanched
5 red dates
2 japanese dried scallops (10g), soaked for 10 mins
1 dried cuttlefish (20g), cut into small pieces
1500ml water
Seasonings(A):
11/4 tsp salt
Steps:
1)Wash and cut old cucumber in chunks, scrap off seeds with spoon.Set aside.
2)Blanch pork ribs in boiling water to removes
scums.Set aside.
3) Combine all ingredients into the pressure cooker and cook for 30 mins.
4) Release pressure, filter soup with oil filter ladle.
5) Add salt and serve.
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