January 16, 2007
Lotus Root Soup
Lotus Root - I used to use this for my artwork to make prints, now I use it for soup.
I tell you… this soup is so sweet, my tastebuds went into a delightful frenzy!
It has been a while since I had this soup. I used to eat Lotus Root Pork Rib Soup at the food court at Amara Hotel in Singapore. There is a herbal soup stall selling soups like Black Chicken Herbal Soup, Duck with Salted Vegetable Soup, Pork Rib Watercress Soup etc. They serve their soup with yam rice which is very unique.
I came across this Lotus Root Pork Rib Soup Recipe from Rasa Malaysia. She said that if Tigerfish and I moved down to Irvine, Southern California, she will cook for us. Wait… let me re-read her comments… oh, she said we will have a big cook-out. Sure! Rasa Malaysia cooks, the rest of us eat. Deal?
While I hone my cooking skills and drool over her pictures, I got to cook my own soup. As you may already know, dried shrimp and dried scallops are the secret ingredients to my soups. Rasa Malaysia revealed that her secret ingredient was honey dates. Now, I can’t have too many secret ingredients, can I? Will they cancel out each other’s effectiveness? I decided to use honey dates for this one and spare my dried shrimp and dried scallops.
Also, I used pork and pork bone instead of pork ribs cos I ran out of cash tend to only drink the soup and use pork as a flavoring ingredient.
Ingredients (Serves 2):
- 8-10 dried red dates
- 3 dried honey dates
- 1 lotus root (about 5″ long)
- 1/2 lb lean pork, bone-in
- 6 cups hot water
- Salt to taste
Preparation and Cooking Method:
1. Soak red dates and honey dates in warm water for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, scrub lotus root clean, discard the ends, peel and cut lotus root into 1/3″ slices. Transfer lotus root, red dates and honey dates to slow cooker.
3. Blanch pork in boiling water to remove scum. (I bought pork picnic, bone-in, so I used the bones as well. I also had the butcher cut the pork into smaller pieces so that they are more manageable and can fit snugly onto the base of my Rival Crockpot. )
4. Transfer pork to slow cooker. Add hot water to crockpot. Set on high heat for 4 hours, or low heat for 6-8 hours.
5. Add salt to taste.
Cooking Notes:
The honey dates and red dates make the Lotus Root Soup so sweet!
Rasa Malaysia suggested using 2 honey dates for a ready-in-one-hour soup, and 1 honey date for a slow cooked soup. My honey dates (not shown here) looked smaller than the ones in her picture, so I used 3. More power? I don’t know, but the soup tasted great!
She also said not to over boil the soup. Mine tasted fine. Maybe because it was slow cooked at low heat?
I was also surprised that the pork had a sweet taste too after being slow cooked. That usually doesn’t happen for my Watercress Soup or Black Bean Peanut Pork Rib Soup.
You really got to make this Lotus Root Soup. I repeat. You really got to make this Lotus Root Soup.
Bite This!
More recipes:
Weekend Herb Blogging! - Red Dates
Got Soup? (8) - Removing Grease From Soup
Early Chinese New Year Greetings
Got Soup? (Final) - Serving Soup
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January 16th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Ah, so that’s what those things are called. I use to eat them when I was a kid.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Hey, great that you tried out my recipes…coolio. Isn’t it great? Now you can cook your water cress soup with honey dates and it will be so sweet as it cancels out that little bitterness in water cress!!!
I know I couldn’t stop sipping my lotus root soup and it looks like now you are hooked too…hmm, gotta make that water cress soup myself (I just received my new pressure cooker!)!!!
January 16th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Yes about the big cookout…plus melting wok will be there too since we are real life friends. LOL. I just sorta “forced” her to take up food blogging after tasting her food!!!
January 16th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
DF - I only used them for art and craft when I was a kid. It’s like a stamp - you dip the lotus root into paint and then make prints. Pretty fun, cos you can get different sized prints.
RM - Ya.. I did that yesterday - honey dates with water cress. Actually the honey dates salvaged my water cress soup because I had put too little pork, so the soup wasn’t sweet until I threw in the honey dates. I look forward to attend Rasa Malaysia and Melting Wok’s G-g-g-great Cookout!
January 17th, 2007 at 12:10 am
It’s been some time since I used my slow cooker to cook soup. Ummmmm……so i need to buy honey dates also ? I have more difficulty looking out in the shelves….no time ;p
Did you eat the Lotus Root also, or just drink the soup ? Lotus Root is very “cooling” vegetable, so cannot eat too much…but the soup is ok. Woooooh….the soup looks really good…all the essence of the ingredients sunk in deep.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Honey dates is in the dried goods section, with the red dates, dried fungus etc. What is Lotus Root supposed to taste like anyway? At the end of the slow cooking my Lotus Root’s texture was like crunchy water chestnut but with no taste, so I didn’t eat them. Maybe you can try RM’s one-hour cooking method?
January 21st, 2007 at 10:46 pm
i have the same spoons. i guess 100 million other people have those same spoons too.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
[…] I love soup. Not the western cream soup, but chinese style such as lotus root and winter melon, etc. Chinese always use chicken or pork to boil soup, it’s said to make the soup “sweeter” (tastier). […]