It’s no
secret that most Cantonese love soup. In fact, the story is told of the exodus
of Hong Kongers to other countries just before the handover to China in 1997.
Entire families would leave but often the men would stay behind in Hong Kong to
continue their business or career. This created a market niche for shops to
spring up selling different types of soups to these gentlemen who were deprived
of home cooked food.
In my
home, we grew up with the custom of having a bowl of soup before family dinner.
The ingredients that went into making this soup often cost a third or more of
the entire meal budget. Depending on the type of soup, the bulk of the purchase
was for pork ribs and chicken. Quite commonly we would put one whole chicken in
the soup along with other Chinese herbs or vegetables.
There
were soups for different seasons, as we believed soup helped to balance yin and
yang in the body. When the summer got hot, we would opt for vegetable soups
containing cucumber, winter melon, bitter gourd, etc. And as the weather cooled,
Chinese herbs or ‘heaty’ meat such as mutton would used to warm the body.
This is
one of my favourite soups for Singapore, where the thermometer seldom dips
below 30 degrees Celsius for much of the year. Old cucumber is believed to help cool the
body. Other ingredients are added to complement the cucumber; in my family that
would usually be dried seafood such as octopus, scallop and oyster, or in this
instance, dried duck gizzard. To give the soup fuller body, mix in pork ribs
and chicken meat. One tip to note is to always place the cucumber into the pot
when the water is still cold and not when it starts to boil, or the soup would
have a slightly sour taste.
Old Cucumber Soup
Old
cucumber 500 g
Water 2 litres
Pork
ribs 300 g
Chicken
feet 300 g
Red
dates 5
Dried
octopus 1
Dried
gizzard 2 (or otherwise 10
dried oysters)
Method:
1. Put cucumber in cold water, turn
on the heat and boil.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients
and boil at full flame for 10 minutes.
3. Simmer for another 2 hours.
4. Season with salt and a dash of
soy sauce.
