Chayote, Sweet Corn and Mushroom Soup

I saw this recipe on Blessed Homemaker’s. I was attracted to this soup, because it uses chayote. Well, some call it buddha’s hand gourd, some call it english gourd, whatever you call it, it’s that green gourd with a slit in the middle.

I have always loved Chayote, because it is so swweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
And indeed, when paired with sweet corn in this soup, it is even sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeter. Infused with the fragrance of mushrooms. Minimal salt is needed, but, please, do not use loads of water, if not, don’t blame me if the soup is tasteless.

The original version called for Agrocybe aegerita mushrooms, but my shitakes weirdly are labeled as 茶树姑, the same Chinese name for aegrocybes. I just used that (hahaha, just because the Chinese name’s the same), because I don’t have agrocybe, the real茶树姑. My mushrooms are from Eu Yan Sang, so that can’t be wrong, I guess they might have been grown on Chinese tea tree trunks. Actually they might be camellia mushrooms , as the Chinese tea bush’s scientific name is Camellia Sinensis, so I’m not surprised that these shitake lookalikes are actually camellia mushrooms, hence the Chinese translation 茶树姑.

Here’s what I did,
1 chayote, about 400gm, peeled and cut into chunks
2 sweet corns, cut into small pieces
5 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked, cleaned and halved
250gm pork loin or lean pork
2.5L water or 10 cups

Bring water to boil and put in everything. Put in on high eat for 30 minutes and low heat simmer for 2 hours. Season with a little bit of salt.

Everything got pretty tasteless after all the boiling, but…… the soup is so flavourful. Everything went into the broth…. Yummy :)