Pork bones (femur / blade)

Pork soup bones — marrow-filled femur (tung gwat) for a rich broth, or flat shoulder-blade and sai si bones for a cleaner, leaner one. Blanched from cold water to purge blood foam, they simmer for hours as the structural base of nearly every old-fire soup. Cheap, dependable and interchangeable with ribs when meat is wanted.

TCM properties

Nature · neutral　Flavour · sweet、salty　Meridians · kidney

Traditional food therapy

In Cantonese food therapy pork bones are used to nourish yin and replenish deficiency, valued above all as the foundation that carries an old-fire soup.

Cautions — read first

• Skim off the fat that floats on the soup
• Those with gout should go carefully with long-boiled, concentrated meat soups (a lot of purine leaches out)
• Those with high blood lipids should pick the leaner shoulder-blade bones

Preparation

Blanch them (飛水) by starting them in cold water and boiling briefly to drive off the blood foam and the smell, then rinse them before the real boil.

Origin

全國豬場飼養；超市及亞洲凍櫃常備 — Frozen soup/marrow bones from ~$5.30/kg at AU Asian grocers (Umall)

Availability in Australia

Common at Asian grocers · A$5.29–15.48 / kg
Umall frozen soup/marrow bones 1kg $5.29 (promo, was $7.19); Borrowdale free-range neck bones 1kg $9.79; soft bones (cut) 600g $9.29 ($15.48/kg)

Pairs well with