爱心靓汤 - 玉米红萝卜莲藕煲排骨 Soup of the day - Maize,carrot and lotus root soup with pork spare rib

I've been waiting for soup since we return from Hongkong last Thursday night.  Finally, today we get to drink some nice soup.  Hurray!! This is one of our favourite soup of all time, especially my little Jane.  It's very delicious and nourishing at the same time.  it is known to be very 滋补.  Anyway, for me, the most important thing is it is very tasty.  It's my mom's specialty also.  Little Jane drank a big bowl this evening and ate 5 pieces of the lotus root and not to mention so much of the carrot and sweet corn.

below is roughly the recipe.  Please pardon me, my mom do not have exact measurement of how much is each ingredient.  It's all by "feeling" and "experience".  It's just "a bit of that" and "a handfull of this" :D  You just intelligently balance the ingredients to your own liking.

Ingredient:
Fresh sweet corn (whole corn)  - 2 nos
Carrot - 2 nos
Lotus root - 1 no (about 1' long)
Pork spare rib / soup bone - 250g
Salt for seasoning

Instruction:
1.  Clean the pork rib and blench in boiling water to get rid of the blood.  Clean the blenched pork rib with cold water.  This will also make the soup clearer.
2.  Cut the sweet corn into 4 or 5 pieces short sections, carrot into large pieces and lotus root into thick pieces. 
3.  In a big stock pot, boil the pork rib and the lotus root for 30minutes, then add in sweet corn and carrot.  Slow boil the soup again for about 1 hour over low heat.  Add water if necessary.
4.  When all ingredients are soft, season the soup with salt.  No MSG required.  The soup is naturally sweet.


Sometime we also add a few pitted red dates.  But watch out, add red dates sparingly because it is heaty and make sure it is pitted as the seed is more heaty.  A Hainanese colleague of mine cook similar soup with ginger.  It taste quite good too, but i do find it heaty too.  Not very suitable to drink during hot day.  You can also make this soup without the lotus root. 

OK.  enjoy cooking.