Winter Solstice Soup Recipes

SAVORY CHINESE WINTER SOLSTICE SOUP

Steps:

• Combine chicken pieces, water, ginger, and salt in a large pot. Bring to a boil.
• Lower heat to medium and using a skimmer or spoon, skim the scum from the soup. Continue until scum is mostly removed.
• Reduce heat to a low, cover pot with a lid leaving a slight gap, and simmer for 2 hours.
• Rinse Chinese sausages. Cut each sausage in half lengthwise, then cut each side into diagonal strips.
• Squeeze some of the liquid from the soaked Chinese mushrooms. Trim and discard the stems, then slice the mushroom caps.
• Peel the daikon radish. Slice the daikon, creating discs approximately 1/4" thick. Lay the discs flat on the cutting board and cut them into thick strips.
• After 2 hours of simmering, remove chicken bones, ginger, and any debris from the broth.
• Add Chinese sausage, daikon radish, and Chinese mushrooms to the broth. Bring to a boil.
• Simmer for 30 minutes.
• Mix the glutinous rice flour and water until a dough forms. The dough should not be too dry or too sticky; add more rice flour or water a little at a time as necessary to achieve the correct consistency.
• Take a piece of dough in your hands and roll into a log-like shape.
• Break off a small chunk of dough, about the size of a grape, and drop it into the soup. Continue with as many dough balls as you choose to have in the soup. Heat through. Dough balls are cooked once they are all floating on the surface.
• Serve hot and garnish with chopped green onions, white pepper, or fried garlic, if desired.

WINTER SOLSTICE SOUP

Steps:

• Sauté onions in the butter in a large soup pot. Add carrots, potatoes, water, salt, parsley, thyme and bay leaf.
• Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Discard the bay leaf.
• Puree soup in a blender in small batches or with a stick blender. Return to the pot.
• Stir in milk. Season with salt and pepper to taste.