Watercress, honey date & pork shank soup with steamed egg
A clear, gently sweet slow soup of peak-season watercress, with silky steamed egg — moistening without being too cold.
- 2 hr
- Serves 3
- Simmer
- Easy
Why it suits you: Yin Deficiency already brings a dry mouth and warm palms, Start of Spring is dry, and New Year means plenty of fried festive snacks. Watercress soup clears dryness and moistens the lungs, and egg nourishes yin — moistening without being too cold.
Method
Prep 15 min · Cook 105 min- 1Cut the pork into chunks, start it in cold water, boil for 3 minutes, then drain and rinse. Soak the tangerine peel until soft and scrape off the white pith.
- 2Wash the watercress in several changes of water, pick off tough stems and yellow leaves, and cut into lengths.
- 3Bring 2.5 litres of water to the boil, add the watercress first, then the pork, honey dates, apricot kernels and tangerine peel.
- 4Boil hard for 15 minutes, then simmer gently for 1½ hours. Salt just before serving.
- 515 minutes before dinner, beat the eggs with the warm water and a pinch of salt, strain, cover with a plate and steam over medium-low heat for 10–12 minutes until just set.
Cautions
- Watercress is cooling — go easy if your digestion runs cold or you get loose stools.
- Bitter apricot kernels are mildly toxic: do not add more than stated, and simmer the soup fully.
Chef's tips
- Always add watercress to water that is already boiling — starting it in cold water tends to make the soup bitter.
The TCM view
Watercress is sweet and cool and clears dryness from the lungs; pork shank is sweet, salty and neutral and nourishes yin; honey dates and sweet apricot kernels moisten the lungs, with a few bitter kernels to ease coughs; tangerine peel is pungent and warm and protects digestion from the cold; egg is sweet and neutral and nourishes yin and blood. Moistening and gently cooling overall.
