Chinese Soups

When I lived at home, my grandma would often make big pots of soup. At one point, I used to think that the soups required a lot of ingredients and that they would be hard or complicated to make. However, after making some of the soups that grandma used to make (successfully!), I realized that they are not that complicated. Getting the ingredients are more complicated, especially when you don't live near a big city with asian markets! Many of the soups do require at least 1 hour of cooking, so if you do decide to make Chinese soups, make sure you have at least 1 hr of free time. I suppose it's possible to cook these soups with a slow cooker, which would make it easier for those of you who have busy schedules.
I believe that many of the recipes for Chinese soups were past down from generation to generation and so you would have to know someone who made soups to get the recipes for them. Nowadays, you can purchase a soup 'ingredient packet' (not exactly sure if that's what you would call it) where the ingredients are all there for you!
All in all, making Chinese soups are not complicated at all! More importantly, they're healthy and delicious :).

Here's a list of some of the soups, along with the ingredients, that my grandma used to make for us:

Watercress Soup (西洋菜雞湯) - 1 to 2 bundles of watercress, 3 to 4 honey dates, pork bones, 1-2 chopped red carrot, 1 tbsp apricot kernel (white color), salt to taste
Lotus Root Soup (莲藕烫) - 1 to 2 lotus roots, several dried mushrooms, 1-2 chopped red carrots, 3-4 honey dates, dried bean curd (this is not really suppose to be in the soup but I like to add it), salt to taste, pork bones
Winter Melon Soup (冬瓜排骨湯) - actually I this is one that my aunt likes to make, rather than my grandma, Chopped winter melon, seaweed, dried shrimp, dried mushrooms, black pepper and salt to taste
Dried Bok Choi Soup (菜乾湯) - 1 package of dried bok choi, 3-4 honey dates, 1-2 chopped red carrots, pork bones, salt to taste
Red Carrot and Green Radish Soup (青红萝卜湯) - 3 to 4 red carrots, 2 to 3 green radishes, 3 to 4 honey dates, pork bones, just be prepared for the strong smell that this soup gives when it's cooked

The amounts for each ingredient is for 1 big pot of soup. I generally use a 10 qt stock pot with water (filled to about 2 inches  from the top) to make my soups. If you use pork bones, you want to parboil the bones to before putting it into the soup. Add the ingredients and bring to a boil. Then let it simmer for 2 to 3 hours. For the winter melon soup, you can simmer for about an hour or until the melon is tender.


 Enjoy!

Tomato & Egg

This is one of the simplest dishes I've ever learned. As a college student living away from home (where I was always well-fed by grandma :P), I would often make this dish. Although I think my tomato/egg dishes come out decent, I still find my grandma's (and grandpa's) tomato/egg dish more tasty! Either way, it's still a dish worth making, especially since it is simple to make.

Ingredients

4 tomatoes, chopped (I use either roma and/or hot house tomatoes, but if you can find really red ones, they'll make your dish more colorful)
2-3 eggs, beaten
1 stalk of green onion chopped
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
salt and sugar (amount depends on personal taste)

Steps

1. Heat oil in wok (or skillet) and add ginger, garlic and half of the green onions. Fry for several seconds.
2. Add tomatoes and fry for 1-2 minutes, add water such that the water nearly covers the tomatoes.
3. Reduce heat to a medium and allow tomatoes to simmer until they are soft and somewhat mushy
4. While tomatoes are cooking, fry the eggs in a separate pan - basically make scrambled eggs
5. Add salt and sugar to tomatoes (adjust based on your taste)
6. Add eggs and the rest of the green onions to the tomatoes, which should be soft and somewhat mushy, cook for 1 minute or so
7. Take out and eat!

Repeat while cooking

If you're like me and don't know how to speak any mandarin (well other than 'ni hao ma' = how are you) then you're in luck! I've compiled some terms (and will add more as I learn more!) that you can practice saying while you cook. Since this is a website mainly devoted to Chinese cooking and movies, these terms will naturally be related to words/characters common in Chinese cooking and movies. Hopefully, this will help with learning a bit of  mandarin (whether it's useful is another story).

*note: the blue words, pin yin, are linked to the MDBG Chinese-English word dictionary (very helpful for hearing how the word is pronounced)

Food/Cooking

green onion = 葱 - cōng​
ginger = 姜 - jiāng
garlic =  蒜 头 - suàn tóu
noodle = 面 - miàn​ ​

soup = 汤 - tāng​

congee = 粥 - zhōu​

shrimp = 虾 - xiā​
pork = 猪 肉 - zhū​ròu

beef = 牛肉 - niú​ròu​

meat =肉 - ròu​

Movies/Entertainment
 
movie = 电影 - diàn​yǐng​