Double-Boiled Pork Muscle with Burdock Soup

What do you need most during these humid and scorching days? I am sure lot of fluid intake in any form such as drinks, soup, dessert and etc becomes the most important task in our daily life. Today I would like to share with you a new ingredient that I have used only once for making the Korean Chicken Soup.

This is a very nutritious and popular soup for kids as the sweetness from the sweet corn and gaint red dates could actually mask off most of the "root" taste from the burdock. You can either serve this soup before or together with your meal.

Burdock comes as a long tapering, soil-covered root, also known as niu bang (牛蒡) by the Chinese. There are many reasons why you should include this root vegetable in your diet. This root is high in fibre and low in calories, rich in potassium and it is also a moderate source of iron and calcium.

The root is often peeled and shredded or cut into chunks, and prepared in soups, porridge, rice and pickled and stuffed into sushi rice. Once the skin is removed, the flesh oxidises quickly so be sure to have a bowl of lightly salted water to prevent browning if you wish to use it for salad.

Here are some of the ingredients used for the soup. Using of pork muscle for a double-boiled soup is always a good choice, as it will retain the flavour of the soup and also usually the meat is discard and we drinks only the soup.

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 3)
250g Burdock, cut into thick chunks
2 - 3 Pieces of Pork Muscle
1 Sweet Corn, cut into section
6-8 Red Dates
1/2 Tablespoon Wolfberries, optional
1.5 Liter of Boiling Water

Method:
1. Trim, clean and place the pork muscle in boiling water for about 2 minutes, remove and rinse well. Set aside for later use.
2. Wash and scrab the burdock with a brush then cut in into thick chunk, alternatively you can use a vegetable peeler to remove the outer skin before cutting it into thick chunk.
3. Remove the husk and leaves of the corn, rinse and cut it into 3 sections and halves.
4. Bring 1.5 Litre of water to boil in a medium soup pot, add in all the above ingredients except wolfberries.
5. When the mixture comes to boil again, lower the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour or alternatively you can transfer the soup to a slow cooker and cook it on AUTO for about 2.5 hours or so. (add in wolfberries 15 minutes before cooking time)

Often Burdock is used together with other herbs to treat a variety of illness such as colds, throat infections, pneumonia and tonsillitis. This root vegetable is also a great blood-cleansing ingredient that makes it indispensable in treatment for skin disorders. So if you have not try using this wonder ingredient perhaps this soup might gives you a good head start with it.

Lastly, thanks to all the lovely readers from Cuisine Paradise facebook page (link) for their suggestions on using burdock. Here are some of their suggestions which you might be interested to take a look.