All soups › Nourishing tonics
Spinach and pig liver soup
“The pot she makes when someone needs looking after.”
Ingredientsone pot, serves 4
Method
A fast-boil soup: ingredients go in once the water boils. The 豬膶 goes in last for about 8 minutes only, because overcooking turns it tough. Dusting it with tapioca or sweet potato starch makes it silkier. Those are HK01’s two tips.
- Trim the roots off the 菠菜 (spinach), soak it for half an hour, wash it and cut into 5 cm lengths. Rinse the 豬膶 (pork liver) until the water runs clear of blood, slice it and dust it with a thin coat of starch.
- Put water, the 菠菜 and the shredded ginger in the pot and bring to the boil.
- Once it boils and the 菠菜 changes colour, turn the heat low.
- Add the 豬膶 and the 杞子 (goji berries) and cook for about 8 minutes.
- Season with salt and rice wine and it is ready.
Who it suits
- traditionally given to people who are low in blood (貧血), or short on qi and blood
- building blood after childbirth
- feeling run down
Who should take care
- people with inflammation, an open wound or a sprain should not add sesame oil or wine (HK01)
- people with high cholesterol should eat only a little 豬膶
- people with a history of kidney stones should blanch the 菠菜 first to take out the oxalates
Soup stories
菠菜 with 豬膶 is a double dose of iron and a classic blood-building pairing, and the local press has leaned hard on its iron content. It is the soup a mother cooks when someone at home has been told they are low in iron, and through the pandemic years the media repackaged it as an immunity soup.
From the same family
Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.