Lotus Root Soup With Peanuts

This is a simple soup which I regularly make.

Being Cantonese, we were brought up with boiled soup featuring largely in our menu. Most of these soups were boiled between 3-6 hours for its taste and nutritional benefits. My favourite is Lotus Root Soup with peanuts.

Here’s one simple and tasty recipe.

1 section of the lotus root

10 pieces of Chinese red dates, stoned and washed

½ cup peanuts

2 pieces of pork bone (still with some meat) about 300g

2 litres of Water

Salt to taste

1.      Soak peanuts overnight, to soften them

2.      Scrape and wash lotus root to remove dirt and mud, slice thinly cross-section.

3.     Bring a small saucepan of water to boil, add in the pork bone and blanch it for 10 minutes. You will notice it may be have a layer of oil, some broken bone pieces and slightly foamy. Drain and discard water.

4.      Bring water to boil, add in cooked pork bone, peanuts, sliced lotus roots and red dates. Cover and let it boil.

6.      Lower the flame to low heat and continue to boil the soup for 3-4 hours or so.

7.      Check regularly and make sure it’s not dried out.

8.      When the meat is falling off the bones, it should be ready.

9.      Season with salt to taste.

Serve hot. Well…most Chinese love hot fresh soup.

PS: I only remembered to take a pix of the soup after it's finished :-(
So sorry. Next time I'll upload the photo when I make again.