Yen Can Cook: Dried Bok Choy Soup “Choy Gon Tong” 菜干汤
“Choy Gon Tong” (菜干汤), which means “dried vegetable soup” in Cantonese and it’s actually “dehydrated Bok Choy”. This soup is traditionally used to bring down heat in one’s body especially on recent scorching weather. This soup is usually paired with other ingredients such as pork ribs (or pork bones), carrot, corn, soy beans, south and north apricot kernels to add the brew’s benefits and harmony of flavours.
My version is a combination of “Choy Gon”, pork bones, carrot and soy bean. In Traditional Chinese Medicine practice, soy beans are believe to have benefit of clears heat, detoxifies, eases urination, lubricates lungs and intestines, also an excellent source of protein.
Ingredients (serve: 3-4)
50g dried Bok Choy
500g – 600g pork bones or pork ribs
1 carrot, cut into 2
Handful of black eyed peas, rinsed and cleaned
2500ml water
Salt to taste
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Step 1: Soak the dried Bok Choy in water for at least a couple of hrs. Rinse and wash thoroughly by flipping open the leaves under running tap water to get rid of some sand and dirt particles. When this is done, the Choy Kon should soften and lighter in color, drain and set aside.
Step 2: Put the pork bones/pork ribs into a pot of water and bring to a boil, to remove blood and impurities. Remove, drain and set aside.
Step 3: Put everything in a pot (except salt) and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let the soup simmer for 2-3 hours.
Step 4: Add salt to taste & serve.
HAPPY COOKING!
I have seen that dried vege before but did not know that it is actually bok choy. I thought it was some other type of salted vege. Maybe I can try to cook this soup as my partner loves soup.
PH, I also know slightly earlier than you when I did my research online 😛
This is the first time I’ve seen someone boil soup with the carrot cut into two only. I don’t know how you get it to soften in such a big chunk. I cut mine into small chunks and still find that they need at least 4 hours to soften. I boiled this soup once but the choy gon didn’t soften enough. I like those I drink outside where the choy gon is almost disintegrating….hehehe! 😉
Kris, I boiled my soup in slow cooker for almost 4 hours too and all the ingredients were nicely soft 🙂
I love soups and this looks so good. I have not drink this type of soup before but I can imagine how delicious it is based on the ingredients used.
Merryn, high 5 to the love for soup! Try this out, this soup is good to cool down our body heat especially for the recent scorching weather >_<
i love how there are so many ingredients visible in this soup 😀
Sean, for photography purpose, actually I only ate the pork ribs and carrot 😛
If we dont want to use pork, what else can we use?
Hi KK, you may use chicken or even vegetarian version with no meat added. 🙂
It’s black-eye pea, not soybean
+1 Yes, it’s a big difference. I still
might give this a try even though I’ve never seen black eyed peas in Chinese cooking before (HK, TW, or China).
Alex, thank for liking the recipe and you can omit the black eyed peas if you cannot get it. 🙂
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It’s such a delicious soup I boiled twice when a friend pass me some. I soaked twice, third time it’s quite clear I save it as soup base. Added Chinese mushroom, honey dates and octopus. Used a thermal cooker pot. It turns out yummy.
Lee, Thank you for dropping by my blog. I never heard that the soaking water can be used to boil the soup. 😛