Patriotic Soup (護國菜 (Hu gog chai))

Name: Patriotic Soup
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 300 g tender sweet potato leaves or spinach; 50 g straw mushrooms or shiitake, finely diced; 750 ml light chicken or vegetable stock; 1 tbsp lard or oil; 1 tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp water; salt, a pinch of sugar and a little egg white, optional

Overview

Patriotic soup, hu gog chai in Teochew, is a smooth green vegetable soup from Chaozhou in eastern Guangdong. Tender sweet potato leaves, or spinach, amaranth or water spinach, are picked from their stems, blanched and chopped very finely or puréed. Straw mushrooms or shiitake are cut into small dice. The greens are cooked in lard and then simmered in a light stock with the mushrooms, salt and a little sugar, and the soup is thickened with cornflour until it is silky and almost creamy. Restaurants often pour it into the bowl with a swirl of beaten egg white or a second, pale soup so that it forms the black-and-white yin-yang symbol.

History

The soup is named after a story from the last year of the Song dynasty. Fleeing the Mongol army, the boy emperor Zhao Bing and his followers are said to have sheltered in a monastery near Chaozhou, where the monks, with little to offer, served a soup of garden leaves, mushrooms and broth. The emperor enjoyed it and called it the dish that protects the country. Since the Ming dynasty it has been made with sweet potato leaves, and it remains a classic of Teochew cuisine.

Main ingredients

Sweet potato leaves, straw mushrooms, stock, lard, cornflour. The soup is built on silky green leaf soup and is usually served hot. Diet: contains meat; usually gluten-free.

Explore: More soups from China

Recipe

4Serves

40 min20 prep · 20 cook

~140kcal / serving

EasyDifficulty

Method

1
Blanch the leaves for 30 seconds, cool in cold water, squeeze dry and chop very finely or purée.
2
Heat the lard and stir-fry the greens briefly.
3
10 min
Add the stock and mushrooms and simmer for 10 minutes.
4
Season with salt and sugar and stir in the cornflour until silky.
5
Pour into a bowl and swirl in beaten egg white in a circle if liked.
✓
Serve. About 40 min from start to bowl.

Sources

Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.