Salted vegetable soup with pork 咸菜汤

This is a recipe for a salted vegetable soup.

A visitor asked me whether I have a recipe for pork and pickled cabbage soup. She ate it at some downtown chinese restaurants in NYC. My first thought was: Cantonese (Guang dong) or Szechwan (Si chuan)?

Pickled cabbage can mean different things to different chinese dialect groups. The Cantonese has a soup dish called harm choy tong which means salted vegetable soup. The key ingredient is a type of pickled mustard cabbage.

The Szechwan has a soup dish called zha cai tang 榨菜汤 which means pressed vegetable soup. The key ingredient is zha cai, also a type of pickled mustard green but the stem of this green vegetable is knobbly and shaped more like a fist. Pictured below:

Both types of pickled vegetables can have salty, sourish or spicy varieties.

So, a tough question indeed.

Fortunately, the recipe below can be used with both types of pickled vegetables.

Now, the question is which is which at the Asian grocery shops. Like I say, the Szechwan one is a knobbly fist-shaped vegetable. It offers a more robust taste and is crunchier than its cantonese counterpart.

Buy pickled chinese vegetables in large packets if you intend to make soups. Those sold in small jars are usually for cold side dishes and can be served straight out of the jars.

As for the tomato, remove the skin by scoring the skin and blanching it in hot water. The skin will curl back from the flesh making it easier to remove. If you have soft tofu leftovers lying around in the fridge, add them into your salted vegetable soup.

Ingredients

300g lean pork
300g salted vegetable or pickled mustard green
3 stalk of spring onion
1 tomato
1250ml water or soup stock

Seasonings

1 tsp salt
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp cooking wine
Dash of sesame seed oil
Dash of pepper
1 tbsp cornstarch

Directions

1. Slice the lean pork thinly across the grain
2. Marinate the pork with a dash of soy sauce and sesame seed oil
3. Add the cornstarch and mix well
4. Wash and soak the salted vegetable for about 10 minutes
5. Cut the salted vegetable into bite-sized pieces or thin slices for the Szechwan variety
6. Wash and cut the tomato into thin quarters
7. Bring a pot of water to the boil
8. Add the salted vegetable and spring onions and tomato
9. Bring the water back to a boil
10. Lower the heat and simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes
11. Add the marinated pork
12. Season the soup with the salt, cooking wine, and pepper
13. Taste the soup before adding the salt as the salted vegetable is salty too

Recipe link: http://www.homemade-chinese-soups.com/salted-vegetable-soup.html