By Ellen L.Published: 2014-04-25
There's nothing quite like soup. Especially for the Chinese. Soup is like life sustaining nectar to the Chinese. When I was a little girl we had a soup everyday with dinner. As part of a Chinese family meal of say four different chinese dishes and one soup. We always had the soup last of all, as my 爸爸 did not like us to drink soup while eating. When the rice was all done (and the rice had to be eaten down to the last grain!) we could then use the soup ladle to help ourselves to a bowl of lovely savory soup to finish our dinner.
Yum, yum... I can picture it right now: our little family tightly crowded around that dinner table...the three kids fighting over this and that...媽媽 telling us to be quiet...奶奶 bringing over dish after dish hot from the stove...爸爸 quiet and waiting for his rice to cool. What a precious thing it is to have food memories!
Nowadays, we're much more lazy about soup (even though in our hearts we long for soup) because, well, it's another dish, another stove going, etc. So it is that this Roasted Duck Salted Egg Bok Choy Soup, or 燒鴨鹹蛋白菜湯, has become a favorite soup for us. It's easy, quick, super tasty and provides you with not only a deliciously savory soup but also a meat and vegetable dish for your Chinese family style dinner. Two dishes in one!
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| Roasted Duck |
A main ingredient in this soup is the Roasted Duck, or 燒鴨. Roasted duck is part of the family of Sui Mei, or 燒味, which is Cantonese style barbecued or roasted meat. In Hong Kong you can find these Sui Mei shops, or 燒味店, in every neighborhood. We have probably 4 within walking distance of our house.
The Cantonese roasted duck is stuffed with savory goodness, sealed and then roasted over charcoal, the skin brushed with honey over and over until light, crispy and a golden red brown. At the Sui Mei shops you can order just a quarter, half or a whole duck. The butcher at the Sui Mei shop will chop it to bite sized pieces unless you specify otherwise.
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| Goose, duck, pork, and chicken at our neighborhood Sui Mei shop |
We don't just use this delicious Roast Duck for soup though. Maybe once or twice a week we buy some roast duck or goose (燒鵝), or maybe some roast pig (燒肉), or a bit of White Cut Chicken (白切雞), etc. and serve these delicious roasted meats by themselves as one of the three Chinese dishes we usually prepare for our dinner.
The roasted meats have recommended sauce bags that the Sui Mei shop will give to you if you ask for it. Really delicious stuff! Really tender flavorful meat all over, crispy and delightfully toothsome skin. It just absolutely amazes me the things that the Chinese can do with a bit of meat!
Besides your wonderful bit of Cantonese Roasted Duck you will need salted duck eggs and a bit of baby bok choy (小白菜), or some other similar Chinese vegetable. Baby Bok Choy works well because its the right size and cooks down sweet, tasty and not too soft in a soup. If you are hooked on salted duck eggs (like we are) you can try making your own with our easy Salted Duck Egg recipe.
Throw everything into the cooking pot and ta-da! Delicious, quick and easy to make Chinese soup and a meat and vegetable dish (just use strainer to scoop everything out of the soup onto a plate.) There you go, you're already halfway done with cooking dinner!
Roasted Duck Salted Egg Bok Choy Soup 燒鴨鹹蛋白菜湯
(Prep time: 2 mins Cook time: 15 mins)
(Prep time: 2 mins Cook time: 15 mins)
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cantonese style roasted duck (chopped already by your Sui Mei butcher)
- 1 1/2 tbsp oil
- 4 quarter sized slices ginger
- 1 salted duck egg
- 10 baby bok choy
- 1/4 tsp chinese white pepper
- Salt to taste
Directions:
Soak your bok choy in 2-3 changes of water to get rid of sand and dirt. Slice the bok choy in half or quarters as necessary. (Depends on the size of your bok choy.)
Heat your wok to medium high. When wok is hot, add oil, then the ginger. Stir the ginger for 15 secs or until fragrant. Add the duck and stir fry until slightly browned, around 1-2 mins. Add 6 cups of water to wok and wait for water to boil.
Separate the egg white from the yolk of the salted duck egg and reserve.
Separate the egg white from the yolk of the salted duck egg and reserve.
When water is boiling add the egg yolk. Let the soup simmer vigourously for 10 minutes. Add the bok choy. When the soup reboils, turn off heat, add the reserved egg white and stir. Add white pepper, salt to taste* and serve the soup hot.
*Tip: The salted duck egg white is quite salty already so be sure to taste the soup before adding additional salt. It may not require any or much more salt!
*Tip: The salted duck egg white is quite salty already so be sure to taste the soup before adding additional salt. It may not require any or much more salt!
Soup-ilicious Stuff at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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