Old Cucumber Soup

One of my favourite soup - easy to prepare and delicious tasting! ' Old Cucumber Soup' or "lao3 huang2 gua1 tang1' is a clear light soup that supposedly clear heat from the body system. Good for hot weather or when you are 'heaty'.

Made with only 3 Ingredients, and best of all, you don't even have to peel the skin from the fruit!

Made for 2
1 old cucumber, clean well and rinsed, cut horizontally into 4 or 5 pieces, depending on how big your cucumber is.
300g lean pork, rinsed with boiling water
a handful of red dates /5 or 6 small dried oysters / 3 pieces of small scallops (about 20 cents coin in size each) - rinsed quickly

For slow cooker, just dump in everything, cover with 4 bowls of boiling water (about 1.2 liters of water - normally i boiled the required amount in my eletric kettle which has a "measurment" side or just boil 4 bowls of water) and cook for at least for 4 to 5 hours on auto mode. ADD SALT TO TASTE JUST BEFORE SERVING.

For normal pots, dump everything in 1.2 litre of BOILING WATER (remember to rinse the pork with boiling water first - else boil some water, put the pork in for 1 minute or until brown scum form on the surface and discard water, and rinse with clean water before using it). Wait till it comes to a rolling boil, before turning down to low flame and let it simmer for 3 to 4 hours. Can't wait? Then turn down to medium flames and let it boil for 1 to 2 hours. _BUT_ the soup will be more tasty the longer you boil it. ADD SALT TO TASTE JUST BEFORE SERVING.

The soup in the picture is made with dried oysters cuz I ran out of red dates. Still, if you have red dates, for a richer soup, you still can add in some oysters or scallops. Note however dried oysters and scallops are salty, so do add salt only before serving.

Besides, adding salt right in the beginning prevents the soup from obtaining the max flavour from the pork. It's the same theory, while marinading any meat that calls for sesame oil, add the sesame oil last or at least 1 hour after the rest have been mixed. This is because the oil will prevent the meat from absorbing the flavours from the rest of the seasoning.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP OF ALL - never peel off the skin from the old cucumber. This is because the flavour that comes from the old cucumber is from its skin! Please learn from the errors of my ways!