Winter melon soup with peas and chicken velvet

[trillium]

Winter melon soup with peas and chicken velvet

Soups can play many roles in southern Chinese cooking, especially to the Cantonese. They can be a snack, such as ground roasted black sesame soup, lightly sweetened and thickened with rice flour, a medicinal health tonic, such as those containing ginseng and other herbal medicinals, or as a soothing part of the family meal.

Winter melon (doong qwa) is very favorably considered for medicinal soups, fancy banquet soups presented in carved melons, or in a soup for the family dinner. Unlike a medicinal soup where the whole melon is used, peel, seeds and all, we’re going to peel and remove the seeds for ours. You can usually find pieces of winter melon cut for home use in the refrigerated section of the produce area in an Asian grocery. Many cooks believe that the more white powdery coating a melon has on its peel, the better it is, so I always look for that coating on the pieces I pick out. Avoid melon pieces that have been cut for too long, they’ll start to be soft and transparent near the rind. I’m giving a recipe for a fairly large amount of soup, because the pieces I can buy are quite large, but it scales down very nicely. The stock should be clear and light, made from meat, feet and bones that have not been cooked or roasted previously. I like to make mine with just a little salt, although some people add a few slices of ginger to theirs. Avoid adding any other aromatics, you’re going for a clear stock full of chicken “essence” and not much else.

• 4-1/2 c homemade chicken stock (store bought is not an option for this)
  
• 3 lb winter melon
  
• 14 oz frozen peas, thawed
  
• 1 recipe for chicken velvet
  
• salt and white pepper to taste
  

The easiest way I’ve found to prepare the melon is to de-seed it, cut it into 1/2 inch slices, slice it off the peel and then cut the slices into pieces about 1/4 inch thick. If you want it to be prettier, you can peel it whole and cut it into cubes. Heat the stock to a light simmer and add the melon pieces. You’ll hear them hiss as they are warmed in the stock. Simmer covered until the melon is transparent, depending on the melon and the size of your pieces it can take 15 – 30 minutes. Add salt to taste, around 1/2 teaspoon, and a few turns of white pepper. You have two options with the chicken velvet: you can add some warm stock to it to thin it out and then stir it in, which will result in a more refined texture, or you can just put it in straight and stir it as it cooks, to break it into the larger pieces. You can see these larger pieces in the finished soup in the photo. What I do depends on mood and occasion. After you’ve added the chicken, stir in the thawed peas, let them warm, and then serve the soup with fresh ground white pepper on top.

Keywords: Soup, Chinese, eGCI

( RG762 )