A healthy soup recipe with lotus seeds, chinese yam, coix seeds and chinese angelica root and pork ribs 四神汤

This healthy soup features 4 mild chinese herbs fondly known as the 4 officials in traditional chinese dietary therapy. It is taken frequently to maintain general good health. The soup is known as 四味汤 (si wei tang), loosely translated as the 4-taste soup.

These 4 herbs are good for the stomach. They strengthen the spleen. If you suffer from indigestion and diarrhoea, this soup should be great for you. You should avoid this if you have constipation.

The recipe calls for steaming the soup. If you have a double-boiling jar, you can try double-boiling it.

The soup is quite common especially among the Cantonese. Soup packs should be readily available at the chinese supermarkets. Try asking around. The chinese yam in soup packs are obviously the dried type. The difference is that fresh chinese yam can be eaten while the dried ones are not as nice.

Be careful when peeling fresh chinese yam, they can be slippery. If you do not know how a fresh chinese yam look like, here's a picture.

Ingredients

2.5g lotus seeds
2.5g euryale seeds
2.5g coix seeds
2.5g poria
2.5g danggui
100g fresh chinese yam
300g pork ribs
4 cups water
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon cooking wine

Directions

1. Wash and soak the lotus seeds, euryale seeds, coix seeds in warm water. Soaking re-hydrates and soften the seeds
2. Peel the chinese yam and slice thinly
3. Wash the pork ribs and parboil
4. Place the chinese yam, lotus seeds, euryale seeds, coix seeds, poria, and pork ribs into a ceramic bowl
5. Add the water until it covers the ingredients. Depending on your soup container, it might not need 4 cups of water.
6. Place the bowl in a steamer or big wok and steam for 20 to 30 minutes
7. Add salt and wine before serving

I hope you enjoy trying out this healthy soup recipe with 4 classic herbs.

Dear visitors

If you want to re-post this recipe, ask me first or follow these instructions. Someone had re-published this recipe with all my notes to food.com without asking me or acknowledging that it came from here. It hurts and removal takes time which I rather spend improving this website. If you like my site, then please don't hurt me or my site in this manner.

This page has been edited and updated on 18 June 2013.

Thanks, Phoebe

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