Still Feeling Peckish

  
HEALTHY SOUP-TO-GO #3

We Chinese love our soups. Probably the only gadget I don’t have in my gadget-ridden kitchen is a double- boiler, which is an essential tool for hard core Chinese kitchens. Because most Asian food does not contain dairy or milk, getting richness and body into soup depends on slow boiling and patient infusing meat or vegetable elements. Which is where the double boiler comes in as it is a way of cooking the soup from the heat of the boiling water, but not directly from contact with the original source of heat. Apparently this is the way to let the soup ingredients slowly release their nutrients and flavours into the soup. The other oddity about Chinese soups is that they are supposed to be health-giving and to treat a variety of ailments. There are restaurants in Singapore that specialise in providing custom ordered soups prescribed by the Chinese sinseh (physician) according to the individual’s needs. 

I grew up in a medical household where both parents, being doctors, would pooh-pooh traditional Chinese remedies and diets. As a result I am fairly ignorant about the properties of various food ingredients, about whether they are “heaty” or “cooling”. This idea of “heaty” or “cooling” food has absolutely nothing to do with thermal temperature of the food. The concept is based on the yin-yang idea of balance where the choice of food is based on the needs and disposition of the body. “Heat” is represented by “yang” foods like ginger, coriander and mutton and “Cooling” is represented by “yin” foods like melons, barley and bananas. Because I have no background in these traditional ideas, I am really vague about how to constitute heaty or cooling diets. Most of my friends know that I am a  “banana” – yellow and Chinese on the outside and white and “westernized” on the inside and I’m always befuddled when patients’ mothers and grandmothers ask me for recommendations for “heaty” and “cooling” foods for their kids.

Still, one can only try. I had picked up a pack of frozen chicken collagen stock from a local butcher chain (“Mmmm” – yes that’s the name of the meat supplier!). Chicken collagen soup is also supposed to be really good for you and is actually marketed as a beauty food in Asia (who knew, right?) I was aiming for a rich chicken broth and noodles to pack for work tomorrow. As I threw the ingredients together I realized I had been brewing a “heaty” soup which probably works for me since I seem to be lethargic and perpetually living on coffee nowadays. This will be a good one and I’m looking forward to a hearty packed soup lunch for tomorrow!