About Chinese Soup Dishes

Soups in Chinese cooking are used very differently. At ordinary Chinese home meals, there is usually a common bowl of soup on the table of which you drink with your porcelain spoon any time of the meal, especially toward the end. Traditionally in China, since water is never and tea rarely served on the table, soup acts a drink.

In soups as well as other savory dishes, the Chinese cook uses MSG. This substance salt-like in appearance, has the virtue of bringing out and accentuating the flavor of any foods with which it is employed. In Chinese homes, where chicken figures frequently, chicken stock is, logically used for soups. But thrifty cooks buy giblets whenever possible, and at the same time, ask for the feet in which there is more goodness than one might think. Chicken gizzards, hearts, skinned feet and necks make beautifully clear stock. Chicken livers, which are parts of the giblets one buys, are never used in the stock but are reserved for inclusion in special dishes. Another to which we are more likely to resort, these days, is those very useful chicken cubes which are pretty generally available. In a Chinese restaurant, where they often boil or reheat pork, beef, chicken, duck, and various bones, there is a common soup stock, usually very dilute, that can be served with anything else and is called ' high soup'.

Authentic Soup Recipes

Alva's "Jook" - Chinese Style Turkey Soup
Chicken and Spinach Soup
Chicken Stock
Clear Prawn Soup with Lemongrass (Tom Yam Goong)
Cream Corn Soup
Egg Drop (Egg Flower) Soup
Hot and Sour Soup
Thai Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup (Tom Yum Kung)
Pho Bo (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)
Red Bean Soup
Salty Soybean Milk Soup
Sizzling Rice Soup
Tomato Egg Drop (Egg Flower) Soup
West Lake Beef Soup
Winter Melon Soup
Won ton Soup

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