***One of my husband’s favourite comfort foods after a long day of work***

This is one of the recipes I make at home which makes me feel like an accomplished stay-at-home wife, even though I am not one!

Traditional chinese soups are one of the easiest & most nutritious things to make, though it needs to start simmering a couple of hours ahead. I like that I still can busy myself with other things while this steeps on its own until dinner time for our family of 2.

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: at least 75 minutes

Serves: 2 - 3

Ingredients

~800g old cucumber
500g pork bones (see Notes, point 2 for substitutes)
1.5 - 2 litres of water
2 - 3 red dates - I like buying premium dates
1 - 2 medium sized dried cuttlefish
Handful of dried scallops - I like using Hokkaido scallops
Fish sauce - the brand I use

Notes

To be honest, the serving size for the above ingredients can be flexible to feed 4 people even. It depends on the number of pieces you cut the old cucumber into and the amount of water used
I used soup bones for this round of cooking, but you can go for prime or spare ribs too. You can even use chicken thigh or legs with bones, but the flavour of pork bone broth is more authentic!
You can omit red dates, but I find that it adds sweetness to the soup & extra nourishment
If you only have either dried cuttlefish or dried scallops, it is fine:) I’m sure this soup can be made without any of them too, but adding both definitely makes this dish super delicious and savoury!
Instead of fish sauce, you can use light soy sauce or salt. But my family thinks fish sauce gives the best flavour.

Method

Par-boil the soup bones by adding the soup bones to room temperature water in the pot you want to eventually make your soup in
Start the heat and let it come to a boil for 5 minutes. I add some ginger slices too, but it is not super necessary. You will see a lot of scum and perhaps bone bits and other impurities float to the surface
Set bones aside, discard the liquid and rinse the pot well
Add to the base of the pot: par-boiled bones, dried cuttlefish, scallops and red dates, then add water
I let the pot come to a boil before lowering the heat to a simmer with the lid on for 40 - 45 minutes
Add old cucumber that is cut into pieces into the soup, add more water if needed
Let the pot simmer with the lid on for at least 30 minutes
Taste the soup and season with fish sauce
Serve with a side of light/dark soy sauce and fresh cut chillies!

Notes

You can skip the par-boiling step and use a skimmer to remove the scum instead. But I prefer doing so because I feel it helps to remove a bit of the funky smell, especially with the addition of ginger slices.
For red dates, it’s best to keep them whole. I made a mistake by halving them and they released more sweetness than we liked into the soup.
Feel free to adjust the water needed, a good rule of thumb I follow is to make sure I cover all the ingredients in the pot with water. I don’t like adding too much, so I even the water level with the ingredients. You can always add more later because it’s more difficult to reduce the soup, or you end up having to add a lot of salt if you add too much water at once!
Technically, the soup is ready once the old cucumber is sufficiently soft to your liking. But my family doesn’t mind it to be on the soft/melty side so I try to go as long as possible to infuse as much flavour of the old cucumber into the soup as possible.
You can make this ahead and leave it sitting on the stove for a couple of hours until meal time! Just reheat when it is time to serve.

Leftovers

One of the best things to store as leftovers! It tastes even more delicious the next day somehow! If I’m lucky, I get to keep a serving for my work from home lunch the next day. Most of the time my husband empties the pot haha.