Pork Ribs and Watercress Soup

The Chinese, especially the Cantonese love a soup to go with their meal and the watercress is among one of the most highly nutritious vegetables to make a good soup. It's an excellent source of vitamins B6, C, manganese and carotenes.
Do check in at watercress home page and explore within to know the wholesome goodness of this awesome vegetable, that is a skin and body detoxicant, curative body-cleanser, toxin-neutraliser and much more.

Ingredients :

500 gm Pork Ribs and Lean Meat

900 gm Watercress

4 pieces dried Fish bones - (available from herbal shop)

3 large preserved Dates without sugar - (Mut Choe)

3 litres water

Salt to taste

Method :
1. Wash the watercress thoroughly, discard the tough stems, and pluck the rest into bite size pieces.
2. Wash the pork ribs and lean meat under running water. Blanch them in some hot boiling water to get rid of scum. Discard the hot water and rinse with running water. Set aside.
3. * Boil the 3 litres of water with the preserved dates and dried fish bones (supposed to help replenish the cartilage in our bones), hence I prefer them to dried cuttle fish.
4. * Once the water is boiling, add in the watercress followed by the pork ribs and lean meat, and boil on high heat for 10 minutes. Continue to boil on low for another 3 hours.
5. Add salt to taste and it's then ready to serve.
Note :
3 * Due consideration is given to evaporation during the boiling process.
4 * Watercress must only be added when the water is boiling hot, otherwise the soup will taste bitter.
Alternatively, you can also make a Sweet Watercress Soup, which is good for cough and also helps to cool down our body during this hot and hazy weather.
Ingredients :

1 kg watercress

10 large preserved Honey Dates

3 litres of water

Boil all the above ingredients for about 3 hours.

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Gladys KockOctober 20, 2009 at 7:46 AM
Watercress and Red Dates Soup is one of my favourite soup. I usually simmer it with red dates, carrot and dried cuttlefish or dried scallop. Addition of honey dates and dried Fish bones sound new to me, might try out next time. BTW, what's dried Fish bones?
Sokehah cheahOctober 20, 2009 at 12:16 PM
Hi Gladys
Honey dates are the preserved dates with no added sugar. Dried fish bones are bones from the tail of the ray fish, they are supposed to replenish our cartilage. Btw, where are you from? I normally get my dried fish bones from the medical shop. Dried cuttlefish is high in cholesterol that's why I switch to dried fish bones.

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