Astragalus Pork Soup

I only get to cook during the weekends so I try to cook a chinese soup if possible, especially when I can find the ingredients. It helps too to have an appreciative “guinea pig” to try my cooking … my dear sister.

I cheated a little with this astragalus pork soup because the chinese herbs came in a pre-mixed soup pack. I only bought fresh pork ribs to go with it.

You can find the detailed ingredient list and directions over at my website: http://www.homemade-chinese-soups.com/astragalus-pork-soup.html

This is the pork ribs that I have parboiled and then rinsed to remove any froth and dirt.

This is the chinese herbs in the soup pack. The packaging states that this soup mix is for general tiredness. Yup, just right for my sister and I who were feeling tired (probably overworked).

From left & clockwise: astragalus (黄芪), dried chinese yam (淮山), codonopsis root (党参), dates (black here but you can use red dates), dried longan (龙眼干) and chinese wolfberries (枸杞子).

I used a thermal magic pot to make this soup.

I brought a pot of water to a boil in the inner pot of the magic pot over the stove-top. Then, I placed the parboiled pork ribs and the chinese herbs (except the chinese wolfberries) into the water. I let it simmer cheerily for about 15 minutes before removing from the stove-top and placing the inner pot into the outer casing. Cover and seal properly.

I didn’t add the chinese wolfberries because I did not want it to become too mushy.

It was a mistake because they were not soft enough by the time I served the soup.

The finished product.