I was born and raised in Hong Kong. After getting married, I moved to Canada with my husband. Spending time in the kitchen cooking for my husband and my son is a type of happiness to me. Mimicking my childhood flavour in this foreign land brings me comfort. My priority of life is to stay healthy - think healthy, eat healthy, and live healthy. I am also a foraging enthusiast and the author of this blog.
1. Peel the lotus root. Cut it lengthwise, and then cut it into 1cm slices.
2. Bring a pot of water to a boil Add lotus root. Blanch them for about 5 minutes. Rinse them with cold water; set aside.
3. In a pot, heat up vegetable oil over high heat. Add garlic, star anises and rock sugar; stir fry until fragrant.
4. Add lotus roots; continue to stir fry for 5 minutes. Drizzle the cooking rose wine and allow it to evaporate.
5. Add soy sauce, salt and 1/4 cup of water. Put the lid on and reduce the heat to medium-low. Braise the lotus roots until the sauce is thicken and it is done. Serve it with steamed rice.
Every Sunday I will make a big pot of soup that enough to last for the whole week. This lotus root chicken soup is the soup of the week. The lotus roots are tasty although after couple hours of cooking. As we don't like food waste, we usually eat everything in the soup. To replenish the flavour for the lotus root and chicken, serve them with soy sauce. That is how my mom always does it.
INGREDIENTS:
1 Old Chicken, skin off
1 Lotus Root, peeled and chunked
5 Chinese Red Dates, pitted
10 cups Water
Salt to taste
DIRECTION:
1. In a large soup pot, add all ingredients. Pour in water that enough to cover all ingredients. Bring it to a boil over high heat. Then reduce the heat to medium and continuously boil for another 2 hours. Add more water half way if needed. Season with salt to taste.
1. Soak the black beans for an hour prior to cooking; discard the soaking water.
2. Remove the tips of each chicken feet (it is optional).
3. Peel the lotus root and cut it into chunks. Rinse well.
4. In a soup pot, add all ingredients except salt. Fill the pot with water that is enough to cover the ingredients.
5. Bring it to a boil over high heat. Then, continue to boil over medium heat for another 1.5 hours. Add more water in the middle of cooking when it is needed. Season the soup with salt to taste.
Last time when my parents came visit, they brought us a bag of dried conche from Hong Kong. Compared to fresh conches, dried conches have a stronger umami flavour, and they are saltier and chewier. People generally use them only to flavour soups. Fresh conches are much tender and sweeter, so people like to add them to the soup along with the dried conches to boost the flavour.
In this recipe, I didn't use fresh conch. However, I added pork bones and extra carrots to bring up the richness.
I try to keep up with making soup at least once a week for my family, and this soup is the best choice for this bitterly cold Sunday.
INGREDIERNTS:
6 Conches, dried
1 Lotus Root, about 200 gram
4 Carrots
6 Pork Bone
4 Dates
2 tablespoons Apricot Kernels
7 cups Water
Salt to taste
材料：
6 隻 乾螺頭
1 節 年藕，約200克
4 條 甘筍
6 塊 豬骨
4 粒 蜜棗
2 湯匙 南北杏
7 杯 水
鹽 調味
DIRECTIONS:
1. Rinse the pork bones under running water to remove the small bone pieces; drain.
2. Peel off the skin of the lotus root and cut the root until bite size.
3. Rinse apricot kernels and conches.
4. In a pot, add all ingredients except salt. Fill the pot with enough water to cover all ingredients; about 7 cups. Add more water if needed.
5. Bring the water to a boil, and then continuously boil it over medium-high heat for 45 minutes. Turn off the heat. Season the soup with salt to taste.
A pot of good soup is very essential on our dining table in winter. It helps nourish our dry skin while it warms up our body, as my mom often said. Usually after lantern festival in late September, when the lotus plants have faded, there are an abundance of lotus roots available in the local markets. Mom loved to buy them because they were not only nutritious but also inexpensive.
This recipe was one of the lotus soups she would frequently make. The collagen from the chicken feet and the starch in lotus root gelatinized the soup, that gave the soup a thick, hearty consistency. As a child, my brother and I would fight over the peanuts in the soup, or had a chicken feet-eating competition. Those were very good memories of this wonderful soup.
The photo above is the traditional way my mom and many other people in Hong Kong ritually serve this soup. It is a light broth served with some rustic cuts of lotus root, a handful of peanuts, and one or two chicken feet. People prefer to enjoy the soup served with all these ingredients, although they may not plan to eat them. This is a common way to enhance the perception of flavour through sight.
However, light broth isn't very popular in my own family. My husband and my son like soup with a thicker body. Wanting them to try some "Chinese flavour", I adapted this recipe using a common Western technique: PUREE! Excluding the chicken feet, I blended the soup with all the ingredients and then boiled the mixture down to the thickness they liked. It turned out to be another winter favourite.
This soup gets a strong nutty flavour from the peanuts, which goes amazingly well with the chicken feet. Lotus root itself has a very mild flavour, but you can still taste the sweetness in the soup.
If you can't find any raw peanuts, raw walnuts will be a very good substitute. Or, you can replace the chicken feet with bones, or even pig knuckles.
