Keeping Warm with Soup

Nothing beats a steaming bowl of soup on a cold winter’s night. Soup was a dish I came to familiarise myself with during my brief stint into vegetarianism. As a typical student, I was much more concerned with studying (and partying) than cooking, so time spent in the kitchen was 50% coffee-brewing, 20% searching for bottle openers, 20% opening and closing the fridge door repeatedly while hoping for food to magically appear, and 10% throwing things together into a pot and hoping for the best.

It was literally that. If it took more than one pot to cook it in, I wasn’t eating it. Pasta and breakfast cereal got boring fast, and one day in the supermarket I stumbled upon one of man’s greatest inventions – soup mix. I don’t mean the powder packets which you add water in, to form an emulsion only fit for toothless geriatrics, but a lovely mix of split peas, lentils, and various beans. All I had to do was boil that with stock powder, throw in frozen mix vegetables and I got a meal that looked after itself while I read sci-fi novels my lecture notes.

However, this is not a vegetarian dish. It’s a childhood reminisce.

Pork Rib & Cabbage Soup

1 onion
Chinese cabbage
2 carrots
Pork ribs
White beans, soaked overnight and boiled
Stock powder
2 star anise
2 green cardamom pods
Cloves

Wash and chop vegetables.
Fill a pot with enough water to just cover vegetables.
Bring to boil, then add the stock powder and spices.
At some stage, throw in the pork ribs.
Add the white beans right before serving.

What is this alchemy, I hear you roar. I don’t know, I was feeling creative. Also, this is what happens when you read a novel in one hand, while absent-mindedly reaching for spices with the other. I thought the cardamom was black pepper. It turned out beautifully, if I may say so. Not quite like the pork rib, peanut and lotus root soup I had in mind, and not at all like the bak kut teh some readers may have assumed.

This is not one of grandma’s recipes. I’m sure she’d eat it if she could though.

It’s a broth-based soup, so it tends to be on the lighter side, but with enough pork ribs and vegetables it’s a complete meal that cooks in one pot, and that’s the way I like it.