Dried Vegetable Soup Premier

Soak the dried vegetables in water until they soften. Use just a little water, otherwise, if you cut them and cook them, there will be a lot. You can use cold or warm water. Once softened, wash them clean.

Wash the pork and cut it into large pieces. Normally, we use ribs or pork spine, but today when I went to the usual meat stall, they were out, so I chose a piece of pork hock meat. Pork belly is suitable for braising, but it's too greasy for making soup.

Wash the carrots and cut them into pieces, soak the tea tree mushrooms in cold water until soft, then wash and cut them. These are added at will, depending on what we have at home and personal preference. The carrots grown at home are plentiful, so I have to find ways to use them up. The tea tree mushrooms were New Year gifts from my husband's workplace and also need to be consumed. 😃

After washing the dried vegetables, cut them and set aside. Since they can be added at the same time as the carrots and tea tree mushrooms, I put them on one plate.

Prepare galangal and longan. The longan was added on a whim, because my father's home has a few longan trees, so every year my mother would sun-dry some longan, and when we went to visit my maternal home, we would carry them like invaders entering the village 😊.

After the water boils, put the pieces of meat in and cook until the foam rises. (This is how I usually do it; actually, it’s better to start with cold water when making soup and skim off the foam after it boils, but I always feel that way there’s a lot of impurities from the meat, especially with bone soup).

Without turning off the heat, use chopsticks to put the meat into the soup pot. This stainless steel soup pot is my premarital property. Two years ago, I bought a ceramic one, and every time I made soup, it took five or six hours, so I eventually gave up using that pot.

Add dried vegetables, tea tree mushrooms, red carrots, star anise, and ginger together, then add water, using hot water because the meat has just been taken out of the pot and is hot; cold water will cause the surface to contract. After bringing it to a boil over high heat, switch to the lowest heat.

I usually simmer for more than two hours. As for red dates, it depends on your preference. If you add them early, they become very soft and not tasty. If you still want to eat the red dates in the end, I personally think it's better to add them about 20-30 minutes before turning off the heat. I usually add salt at this time as well.