This was yesterday's lunch. I woke up sensing the slight signs of an oncoming cold, so decided to nuke it before it caught hold.
I had some chicken trimmings - head, feet, wing tip, feathers, comb, beak. All but the feathers went into making a stock along with a chunk of ankle bone from a whole Xuanwei ham, one of China's finest.
After the requisite simmering time of about an hour, that was sieved and muslin strained. The lumpy bits were discarded.
From there, to follow my recipe (if you can call it that):
a) take as much garlic as you think is sensible, double that and add a bit for good luck. Bung into stock.
b) chop as much ginger as you did garlic, then add a bit just to be sure.
c) decide how many spoonfuls of chili flakes you can stand and add 50% more, plus some for the pot.
d) boil the lot together for about 15 minutes.
I then added some 三鲜馄饨 - sān xiān hún tún which my friend and I made about two weeks ago and froze (actually I just chopped - she did the rest.) 三鲜 means 'three delicacies' - here pork, shiitake mushrooms and dried shrimp. 馄饨 - hún tún is what 95% of China calls what you probably know as wontons, the Cantonese term.
At the same time, threw in some leftover chayote shoots which I had bought for dinner last night. Gave them and the huntun about three minutes and Robert was your father's brother.
For the first bowl, I added black pepper. For the second, white. I decided the black gave more taste and the white more heat, so for bowl three I added both.
Woke up this morning symptomless, either down to the soup or to the hot toddy I had just before bedtime.
Ah-chooo! Time for another!
Nearly forgot the picture. This was the first, black pepper bowl.