About Chinese soup recipes

Many Chinese recipes are passed down orally. This is partly due to the widespread illiteracy of the general Chinese population, especially women.

Another contributing factor is that most Chinese mothers learn cooking by helping their mothers in the kitchen. Cooking skills is picked up through observation and practice. I think the term social learning is apt here.

Many Chinese soup recipes are therefore committed to memory. And many wonderful Chinese soups are made from memory and experience, not from recorded recipes.

With modernity comes the erosion of tradition and home skills. I, for one, have never managed to inherit the cooking skills of my late paternal grandmother. She was a great cook. I have fond memories of her in the kitchen, dishing out dumplings, steamed rice cakes, otak-otak, egg-rolls, curries, soups and etc.

So, a new generation grew up without good cooking skills. What do we do? Turn to recorded recipes.

Thank God for diligent people who recorded down their mothers' recipes or spent time testing recipes. There are still people around who cook well. I hope they will start recording what they cook and how they cook it. That could save the rest of us a lot of mistakes and embarrassment.

Hmm, this topic is getting too serious.

Anyway, while I was researching and gathering materials for my website, a question pops up:

What differentiates Chinese soup recipes from soup recipes around the world?

I do not think I got a comprehensive answer but I would like to share some of my thoughts here. I hope you will participate in the conversation by leaving some of your thoughts here too.

1. End-product

From literature I have read, especially those in English, Chinese soups have been commonly categorized into thin and thick soups.

Thick soups refer to soups with ingredients added to water and cooked together for a considerable period of time to produce very flavorsome soups.

Thin soups refer to soups with ingredients added to pre-prepared soup stocks and cooked quickly.

I know that soup categories in Chinese are not easy to translate, but I personally find these 2 categories inadequate to explain the variations in Chinese soups.

For example, hot and sour soup is a soup where ingredients are added to soup stock and cooked up fairly quickly. But because it is thickened with cornstarch, I find it odd calling it a thin soup.

There is a specific term for this kind of soup in Chinese, but there is no real equivalent in English. So, thickened soup will have to do.

Would it be clearer if Chinese soups are categorized as follows?

Simmered soups
The equivalent of the thick soups mentioned above. This is not the same as thick creamy soups.

Quick soups
The equivalent of the thin soups mentioned above.

Thickened soups
Soups that have been thickened with some sort of starch. The thickener is usually cornstarch but potato, arrowroot and yam starch are equally good.

Ingredients are diced or sliced into thin strips and cook till soft. It is a soup dish with a complex texture.

Famous thickened soups include shark fin soup, hot and sour soup and Westlake beef soup.

Herbal soups
Herbal soups are distinctively Chinese. They are products of a natural approach to health, diet and food.

Although the use of herbs in food is not exclusive to Chinese cooking, it is the Chinese who developed it into a fairly comprehensive food preparation system. Mention Chinese herbal soups and people think of good health and natural remedies. There are also certain herbs that are used only in Chinese cooking and almost always in soups.

Noodle soups
I believe serving noodles in soup is again distinctively Chinese. Noodle soups are generally considered to be a one-meal dish. There are so many varieties of noodles and soups that this topic probably deserved its own website.

Rice Congee
Rice is cooked with water or soup stock to produce congee of varying consistencies. At one end of the spectrum, the Teochew fish porridge could be considered rice served in fish soup. At the other end of the spectrum, the Cantonese jook can be considered a savory pudding.

Most Chinese would not consider rice congee as a soup but I know many people are fond of the rice congee, so I included it in this list.

Sweet soups aka desserts
Sweet soups are served usually as desserts at the end of a meal or as late night snacks. Ask a Hong Konger and they will swear by a bowl of black sesame seed sweet soup or almond sweet soup.

In Singapore and Malaysia, we have the dou-suan (aka mung bean sweet soup. Sorry, that is the best English equivalent I can come up with) and the black glutinous rice congee (aka bubur hitam in Malay).

Whether simmered or quick, thickened, herbal or sweet, most Chinese soups can be considered clear soups. With that, I mean that soup ingredients are rarely grounded up or blended to make thick creamy soups. They are mostly cut into bite-sized pieces and "sit" in the soup liquid. This makes them generally light and easy on the digestive system. Taken sensibly, they are generally healthy soups

2. Ingredients

Unique Ingredients
There are many unique Chinese ingredients used to make soups.

For example, tofu, a creamy pudding-like food made from the milk of soy beans. It is a very common soup ingredient.

I thought the Japanese and Korean really brought the use of tofu in their cuisine to a much higher stage that the Chinese. Silken tofu is now more popular than the soft Chinese tofu. What about the spicy Korean tofu soup? Yummy!

Another example is Chinese herbs like Chinese wolfberries (commonly known as goji berries), red dates and astragalus.

Another category of ingredients are the dried stuff. Dried and preserved goods are very common in Chinese markets. Some of these stuff are very expensive. We won't talk about the bird's nest. There are still the dried scallops, and dried sea cucumbers. Dried shiitake mushrooms can be quite expensive as well. Reasonably priced stuff include dried seaweed and its family, dried shrimps, and dried fungus.

The way the various ingredients are combined in chinese soups is governed by the yin-yang philosophy of cooking. This philosophy is deeply ingrained in our Chinese psyche. I mean, I did not have to go to cooking school to know that certain foods are not used together.

Manipulation of ingredients
Ingredients have also been cleverly manipulated. A good example is the egg.

It can be boiled and shelled before adding to soup. You can crack a whole egg into the soup and let it cook without breaking the yolk. It can be beaten first before adding to soup to create egg flowers. It can even be scrambled and fried before adding to soup.

3. Cooking techniques

In my opinion, the easiest soup making technique is the simmering method. The ingredients and water are cooked together over low heat for several hours. I believe the double-boiling and steaming methods are also quintessential Chinese.

4. Chinese soup culture

The Chinese has a communal eating culture. A big bowl of soup is typically placed in the middle of the round dining table where everyone can help themselves using their own soup spoons.

Some have cringe at the sight of so many people dipping their personal soup spoons into a communal bowl. To address this, the "public spoon" and individual soup bowls were introduced. The "public spoon" is basically a ladle or a large soup spoon placed near the communal soup bowl for people to scoop soup into their respective soup bowls.

Chinese soups can be easily served as appetizers or starters. Most Chinese restaurants in the West organized their menus accordingly.

I know there are little practices we perform at the dining table that a non-Chinese may find intimidating if they are new to the cuisine. The same goes for the Chinese when they dine at French or Italian restaurants. With frequent contacts, we become more acquainted with each other's dining habits and culture and understanding are shared.

Talking about culture transmission via food, there is a book called Swallowing Clouds written by Anthony Zee, a physics professor. It discusses the Chinese culture using a typical restaurant menu as a launch pad. I had fun reading the book and found his explanations of various Chinese practices illuminating.