Dried Bak Choy Soup

Bak Choy is not easy to find in Sweden and whenever they appear on the supermarket shelves, I would definitely buy them. This simple vegetable has lots of uses and one of the more unique one is the dried version of it. Vegetables were being dried in the past to preserve the abundance harvest but its more as a continuation to obtain the flavor of the past now. On the package, you will see that it says dehydrated cole, not very correct but it has become the De facto name for the dried version on the internet now.

This is supposedly a Cantonese kind of soup and I first tasted it while my Dad was still working at SATs Cargo, they have a staff canteen and one of the stall owner was manned by a lady who cooked these wonderful soup that my Dad would buy back to let us taste. This was the soup that I fell in love with because of the deep flavor of the dried bak choy and we attempted to cook it once and only once in Singapore because we failed to recreate it. I think it was because we didn't soak the dried vegetable before cooking it.

So, this time round I googled around for the right method of cooking and decided to soak it with boiling water for about 4 hours. The result is that while the vegetable was soft enough after 1.5  hours of simmering, it somehow lacks the taste. Next time I cook this, I will try soaking it overnight in cold water instead to preserve the taste of it.

Ingredients
300g pork ribs, blanched
7 stalks of dried bak choy
2 preserved dates (mi zao)
4 dried dates
salt to taste

Steps

1. Soak the dried bak choy in water overnight, wash thoroughly to remove any dirt, dry and cut into 1.5 inch pieces.
2. Blanched the pork ribs in hot water to remove the scum. Return the ribs to a pot of hot water to boil.
   
   
   
3. When the water is boiling, add the re-hydrated vegetable, both types of dates to the soup, turn down the heat to simmer for 1.5 hours.
4. Add salt to taste before serving, the bak choy should be nice and tender. You can drink it on its own or go with rice.