Chinese White Radish Soup

It’s time for another comfort soup and this time, I am featuring the Chinese White Radish Soup. The chinese white radish is also known as white radish (surprise!) or amongst the Japanese as the Daikon Radish. It basically looks like a white carrot which is oversized. It is quite a versatile vegetable as you can use it to make lo bak kou (turnip cake), stirfried, pickled or cooked in soups like the above. I am given to understand that amongst the chinese who practice or partake in traditional herbal medicine, the white radish is a no-no in the diet of the patient during treatment as it supposedly absorbs all the medicinal values. Anyone knows about this?

Anyway, the Chinese White Radish Soup is a simple recipe which is suitable even for beginners. Just prepare the ingredients, drop them into a crockpot / slow cooker / double-boiler or pot and simmer it. A good tasting healthy soup awaits you when it is done. I usually add dried cuttlefish and dried oysters for added taste and flavour but that is optional. Give this soup a try. It’s delicious.

This is my recipe for Chinese White Radish Soup

Ingredients

• 300 grammes pork ribs / bony pork or chicken parts
• 1 white radish (about 200 grammes or more – cut into large chunks or sliced)
• 8 red dates
• 1 piece dried cuttlefish
• 6 pieces dried oysters
• 700 ml water for soup (or approximately 2 1/2 soup bowls of water)
• 500 ml water

Method

Bring to boil 500 ml water in a pot. Add pork ribs / chicken part and allow the meat to cook slightly. Remove scum from surface of water. Remove meat and discard water.

Bring to boil 700 ml water in a clean pot. Add the partially cooked meat and the rest of the ingredients and bring back to boil. Then reduce heat to simmer for 2 to 3 hours or till soup reduced to 1 1/2 bowls water. Add salt to taste before serving.

If you are using a crockpot or double-boiler, reduce amount of water to just over a soup bowl. Add ingredients into pot. Boil the water separately and pour the boiling water into the pot before simmering. Enjoy your chinese white radish soup.