Green radish and carrot soup

Adoring the beautiful green radish on my chopping board... :)

Green radish apparently reduces heatiness, alleviates stress, promotes urination and is good for expelling phelgm.

Green radish and carrot soup

Ingredients:

• 1 green radish (chop into chunks, remove skin)
• 2 small carrots (chop into chunks)
• 6 red dates
• 1 dried scallop (place in soup bag)
• 250g pork ribs
• 3 chicken breast bones
• 3 cloves garlic (with skin on)
• 1.5L water
• fish sauce/salt to taste

Method:

1. Blanch the pork ribs and chicken bones.
2. Rinse the red dates and garlic.
3. Add the red dates, garlic, pork ribs and chicken bones to the water in a slowcooker.
4. Let it cook on LOW for about 6hours.
5. Transfer the soup to a pot suitable for cooking on stovetop.
6. Boil on high heat for about 30min then remove the red dates, garlic and chicken breast bones. Retain the pork ribs if desired. Return the scallop to the soup.
7. Put the soup through oil filter paper to remove excess oil.
8. Add the green radish and carrots and boil for at least 30min till the green radish softens. (Don't expect them to be soft like carrots or even white radish. The texture's quite different!)
9. Add fish sauce to taste.

If cooking on stovetop,

1. Blanch the pork ribs and chicken bones.
2. Rinse the red dates and garlic.
3. Add the red dates, garlic, pork ribs and chicken bones to the water (2L instead of 1L) in a pot.
4. Boil on high heat for about 30min then simmer for 2-3hours.
5. Remove the red dates, garlic and chicken breast bones. Retain the pork ribs if desired. Return the scallop to the soup.
6. Put the soup through oil filter paper to remove excess oil.
7. Add the green radish and carrots and boil for at least 30min till the green radish softens. (Don't expect them to be soft like carrots or even white radish. The texture's quite different!)
8. Add fish sauce to taste.

For toddler's consumption:

• Cut the green radish into small cubes of about 0.5cm to make chewing easier. I found it ok to feed 2-3 such cubes to Alicia at one time, but it depends on your toddler of course... :)
• Cut carrots into cubes as well but there is no need to cut it as small as the green radish as carrots are much softer.