Thursday 6 May 2010

Three gourd soup 三 瓜 汤

Yesterday was a particularly hot and hectic day. I could feel my temperature rising as I rushed from place to place.

While tuning in to a Chinese cooking segment, I heard the radio DJ recommending the 三 瓜 汤 (3 gourd soup) to beat the heat. It was perfect timing as SK was running a fever the day before.

The key ingredients are Chinese pearl barley, pumpkin, winter melon and silk gourd. While she recommends using pork for the stock, I used fresh chicken thighs instead. I also threw in some red dates and dried scallop.

I found the soup very flavourful after boiling for 1.5 hours though the kids didn't quite like the taste of Chinese barley. I should use normal barley in future.

I enjoyed the soup immensely and had the biggest share of pumpkin which is one of my favourite food. I even ate up all the pearl barley which had become tender and tasty like the rest of the ingredients.

I'm sharing this recipe because I know some of my soup-loving friends like Petunia, OKC and Mother Hen would appreciate this.

Sorry, no photos as my camera is dead. We have misplaced the charger.

5 comments:

Petunia Lee said...

You bet I appreciate!

auntielucia said...

Blur, I would leave out the red dates in future, as they are considered "heaty" -- warms up the blood etc..

Another no-brainer soup: boil barley, glutinous rice and dried scallop till softish; add bean curd (boil the hard variety a bit longer); then finally add chicken wings.

Blur Ting said...

Auntie Lucia - Thanks for the tips and recipe!

auntielucia said...

Sori Blur, bean curd in the soup recipe refers to "dried bean curd sheets"... soup will taste quite different with bean curd! :-D

Blur Ting said...

AH, that sounds even better cos YK loves that kind of bean curd strips.

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