Best of Hong Kong- Soups

Cantonese love food and they are well-known for their soup and i get
to pick up recipes here n there so that I will cook nice soups at home
too. Qn: why cook when u can hv it out. Just a personal preference and
taste that I like clear soup, HKer's taste buds tend to be more salty
and oily.

Of course, another reason of cooking soup at home is my magic thermo
pot. This is heaven-sent! U can cook 老火汤 for up to 10hrs without
electricity or gas. I always hesitate using slow cooker due to the
electricity consumption and also worry abt shortcircuit (especially my
current apt is 19yrs old!) Furthermore, the soup i cook in Sg was not
as tasty due to the hrs i spend~ 45min-1hr max; and Pat's mum can cook
fantastic soup, so i rather don't compete with her. (private joke, i
would ask pat to grade mine on scale of 妈妈汤). So soup is never a
must whenever i cook in Sg.

Now in HK.. Leaving all the ingredients cooking slowly throughout day,
the taste really get into the soup, i don't even add salt nowadays and
the taste is getting higher on 妈妈汤 scale. I would just need to
stir-fry 1 or 2 more dish then wala.. we have a gd dinner.

Hk soups are not just tasty, they also have 'medical' benefit, and
there are soups recommended to drink in each season. Though pat is
pretty unadventurous in food and he dislike 陈皮 (which is supposed
to be gd for throat) so there's limited type of soups i can try. 1
recommendation is to use Monkeyhead mushroom, which is gd for spleen
and organs. It can be cooked with maize, carrot and lean pork, with
dried scallops n 蜜饯 (candied dates) for extra taste. Another
combination is with red and green carrots. Simple and It taste clear
and gd. ;)