Salted Veg Duck Soup 咸菜鸭汤

Date:  June 26, 2011

A lot of my friends ask me why I seldom go to the hawker and eat, my answer is always consistent, i.e. I am allergic to MSG.  :)  So, if you love to eat some food out there and you afraid of eating at the hawker or food court... cook yourself!

Here is one dish/soup I love to drink and it is easy to cook.  Teochew's salted veg duck soup.  咸菜鸭汤

Ingredients and methods:

1.  A whole duck.  You can get this from Giant, market or even cold storage (frozen one).

2.  OK.  I don't eat the head, the neck, the legs and the backside.  Cut those away.  Some people like to cook the whole duck, but I choose to cut it into pieces.

3.  Cook 2 big pots of boiling water.  One to soak the duck (过水for few minutes), and the other is your soup pot (where you cook your duck soup).  Why?  Well, first of all, duck is usually very oily.  So, by soaking it few minutes in the boiling water, hopefully, it wash away some nasty fats, and blood, and dirt perhaps?

Look at the first boil water which I soak the duck.... oily right?  hahaha

4.  Of course, I prepare a third pot of water (normal temperature) to wash it before I throw it into the soup pot.  Sort of rinse the duck before I cook.  Look at how fatty is this duck.  Very fat.

5.  Even after you rinse the duck, the normal water pot become so oily.  Are you sure this food is healthy?

6.  Next ingredient to put inside is the salty veg.  咸酸菜。You can get this easily from the supermarket.  Those comes in package, and green color.  So, what you do is to open the packet and soak it in clear water for a while.  And then rinse it.  Try to rinse away the color.  :)

7.  Prepare 2x tomatos.

8.  A few slides of ginger.  Cut it into this shape, and then SMASH it.

9.  OK.  You know those sour plum that you use to steam fish.  You need two of those.

10.  Throw all the above ingredients into the soup pot.  and you are done.

11.  Remember, after you bring everything into boiling state, remember to turn down the fire to minimal, use the slow fire to slow cook it for 2-3 hours.  Depends on how soft you need your duck meat to be.

12.  Lastly, add in some salt (if not too salty), add in some sugar (if you need it to be a little bit sweet), or even pepper (based on your taste bud).  Cooking this soup is effortless.  Prepare the ingredients, duck, salted veg, tomatos, ginger and sour plum.  Wash the duck, boil the duck, rinse the duck, and put the duck in the soup pot together with the rest and bring it to boil and then slow cook it for 2 hours.  that's it.

Aiyoooo... Just now drove pass Clementi, and I bought some Durians for dinner too.  Don't know if I can eat Durian together with duck soup or not... hahahaha