Watercress Soup

Please do excuse the picture above. I actually forgot to take the "after" picture!


Well, for most Chinese, this will be a familiar soup to you. In Cantonese, it is pronounced as "Sai Yeung Choi".


Here's the recipe:
Serves 9 - (I had many guests on that day! That's another reason why I forgot to take the "after" picture!)





3-3.5 litres of water
500-600gm of watercress
25 dried red dates (seeded)
A handful of wolfberry/ kei chi
400-500 gm of chicken bones/ pork ribs
Salt to taste


1. Use a smaller pot and boil some water. Once it is boiling, place the meat into the pot. Allow it to simmer about 2 minutes or until it turns opaque.
2. Drain the water. Fill the same small pot with room temperature water. Scrub the meat a little to remove any excess dirty remnants. Set the meat aside.
3. Fill a big pot with water and place watercress, red dates, wolfberry and the meat into the pot.
4. Boil the water on high heat.
5. Once it is boiling, set it on low heat and let it simmer for at least 4 hours. (One sign that it is done is when the red dates turn purple)
6. Add salt into the soup to your liking.
7. Serve while it's hot.


Note:
1. Red dates must be seeded(seeds removed) before cooking. The seeds are not nutritious, and apparently, they may affect health when taken in long-term.
2. You can put lesser red dates into the soup. I prefer more as they add sweetness to the soup.
3. It's my grandma's style that we need to separately boil the meat (chicken bones/pork ribs) first prior to placing them into the big pot. This is to remove the first layer of oil as well as dirty remnants that come out from the meat. It also helps enhances the sweetness of the soup.
4. Because you are simmering the soup for long hours, always remember to add more water than your usual measurement in boiling soup as the water will get evaporated.


SY