Make Your Own Soup: Si Shen Soup

This is a chinese herb soup that I boil for the family quite often. I normally asked the uncle from the Chinese Medicine Hall to packet $2 of Si Sen Soup and they will understand what I want. I can't really name all the herbs that is inside, but essentially, this is what it will look like:


Si Sen Soup

• Si Sen Herbs
• 1 piece of Lean Pork ($3)
• 1/2 a Chicken Breast with bone
• 8 cups of water
• 2 tbs of Wolf Berries (Gou Ji Zi)
• 8 red dates (optional) or 10 dried longans (optional)
  
• Raw Chinese Yam (Shan Yao) - about 2 to 3 inches (optional)

1. Scale the pork and chicken. Wash the herbs in hot water.
2. Put all ingredients in a pot and pour the water. Bring water to boil and then lower heat and simmer covered for 4 hours or more. Keep a look out for the water as it might overflow if your pot is too small.
   
3. Soup is ready to serve.

Health Benefit: Not too sure about the exact health benefit but it's generally taken to help improve appetite, improve strength and calm nerve. So it's very good for children who has poor appetite, especially after sickness.

Tips: I normally cook this soup in a slow cooker so I don't need to worry about water overflow. I just throw all the ingredient in the pot early in the morning, pour in water and then just switch on the slow cooker on "High" and let the cooker simmer and it will be ready to drink by dinner time.

Make Your Own Soup: Mum-in- Law's Soup

Ok, this soup has quite a number of ingredients and it tasted really nice, but I'm not too sure who is the lead actress in the soup, so called this Mum-in-law's soup since it's a recipe suggested by my mum-in-law.

Mum-in-law's Soup

• 2 carrots
• 1 lotus root (about 5 inches long)
  
• 1/2 cup of raw cashew nuts
• 1 corn
• a few pieces of dried abalone (optional)
  
• One piece of lean meat (about $3)
• 8 cups of water (need to adjust the water accordingly, if you like it more diluted, add more water)
• Fresh Chinese Yam ("Shan Yao")- about 2 to 3 inches
  

1. Scale the lean meat to get rid of the blood stain. Wash dried abalone in hot water.
   
2. Soak raw cashew nuts in hot water for 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Wash, peel and cut the carrots, lotus root, corn and chinese yam, cut them into big chunks.
4. Put all the ingredients into a pot and pour water. Bring water to boil and lower heat, simmer for about 2 hours and the soup is ready to drink.