Initially a failure, but I managed to saved it at last!


The sacrifice: 5 pieces of the pig coccyx, 10 pitted red date, 2 jujube (蜜棗），sliced lotus root - fortified with 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 table spoon of soy sauce & 3 table spoon of fish gravy.


Pour everything into the water, and boiled (with medium flame) for 40 minutes


If you realise, I still die-die added more water into the pot

And as usual, I cooked in slow flame for the rest of the 3 hours.

After that, no more photo cos I was a bit panicked cos again - thin taste!!!

I cooked for 3 hours but after that, I realised, actually my mum would normally cook for 3 hours, but she would put the pot into the "thermos" like stuff to keep warm - in a way, it's still cooking!!!!

So after the lunch, I cooked for another 30 minutes in medium flame.

Added another half teaspoon of salt and half table spoon of soy sauce, too.


OK la, this time, even my sis said 'It's a pass' (yah, FYI, her mouth is quite choosy)

So yes, success, finally!!!

Winnie shared with me the improved recipe, and I shall try it in the next attempt.

I modified some in step 2 (for bigger portion) & 5 - basically, the longer you cook the taste will be richer (but no more than 3 hours pls)


1) Short-boil the pork bone for approx 1 minute...and discard the water
2) Put the pork into clean 3L of water...together with 5 medium sized dried oyster
3) Add the cut gourd with the seeds removed.(remove the seed from the gourd by using a toothpick)
4) Boil with high flame for 10-15 mins
5

a) Switch to medium... continue cooking for the next 2 hour

or

b) Switch to low flame ...continue cooking for the next 2 hours 45 minutes

Last but not least, thanks, Winnie :)

Today, I tried a new soup recipe - and I failed.

Nevertheless, I'll still document it

What I used was 1/4 of the shark's fin gourd (魚翅瓜）, 5 pieces of the pig coccyx, 10 pitted red date. Instead of soy sauce, I'm gonna use only fish gravy - a secret weapon that my late granny often use to make the food tasty.


Put all the ingredients into the water


Cook until the water is boiled (approx 15-20 minutes)


Cook with slow fire for the next 2 hours 45 minutes



And the result - FAILED

Reason was because I miscalculated the water needed - the marrow would release water (since majority of marrow is water-based) when it's cooked.

So, the result was - thin-tasting soup.

I shall cook again with slow fire, and see how it goes.

And tomorrow, lotus root soup.

Stay tuned.

It's been a while since I last cook any soup.

Perhaps, lotus root soup this time.

But I guess it'll be time consuming because cleaning the lotus root itself is already a tedious process.

The result: I'm satisfied

It's clearly that insufficient salt & soy sauce were the problem.

Comment from my family:

Mum: Too salty (as usual, cos she likes the food to be not so salty), and you are supposed to soak the peanuts for 6 hours (!)
Sister: You've finally passed to cook soup
Father: The peanuts was nice to chew

My mum said we'd need to soak the peanuts for 6 hours for it to release some sort of bad element (I dunno what is that btw)

With the ingredient shown above, there are some missing ones as well:

i) it's a full bowl of peanuts
ii) a garlic (peeled)

How I cook this time is also different, because I'm sort of in rush:

1) The half pot of water was first boiled (with medium fire)
2) Pour in the pork ribs
3) Cook for another 10-15 minutes (this is to let the water filled with the meat's essence, so to say)
4) Pour the rest of the ingredients (garlic, pitted red date and peanuts)
5) Cook with medium fire for the next 30 minutes
6) Cook with small fire for the next 2 hours 30 minutes
7) Put 1.5 tea spoons of salt, 2 table spoon of soy sauce & 2 table spoon of fish sauce
8) Cook until the soup boils

Et voila!

I'll tell the result later this evening. :-) Gotta go now.