We are familiar with goji berries or wolfberries. But do you know that the Gau Gei soup are made with the leaves of the goji berry plant? It’s just that the goji plant flowers but never fruits here.
Goji plants are very easy to plant. You can just use the stems of the ones you bought. After you’ve taken off the leaves for the soup, tuck that stem into some soil, in a area with good light, water it twice a day, and later on you’ll have goji leaves sprouting out. Give it more time, and then it’ll grow into a bush. My mom did that once, but it didn’t take long for us to eat off the plant : ) We were consuming faster than it could grow.When I was 13, I did marketing for mom. Everyday she’ll tell me what to buy and which stall to go to. And 2 months after that, she no longer told me what to buy and I’ll decide by myself. One day, I bought these goji stalks and the lady who sold me them told me, the soup is best made with salted egg, not regular chicken eggs.
So now, may I present to you Goji Soup with salted duck egg.
180gm goji stalks (pluck only the leaves, discard the stems) Caution: Stems are thorny
1 salted egg (break the egg into a bowl, cut the yolk into small pieces, put the yolk back into the whites)
1 Tbsp wolfberries/goji berries
1/3 cup dried anchovies, rinsed
1 tsp oil
1L water
Salt to taste
1. Put anchovies into saucepan/wok and put in oil. Let it fry for a while. Put in water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Strain the anchovy stock. Return stock to pot. (You can skip step 1 and 2 if you prefer to use stock cubes)
3. Bring stock to a boil, with a ladle in one hand and the salted egg in another hand, pour the salted egg into the pot with the other hand stirring so that the egg will not clump together.
4. Now, taste the soup. If it’s not salty enough, add in salt. Do not season before the salted egg, because you won’t know how salty the egg will be.
5. Put in goji berries. Then the goji leaves. Stir and bring back to a boil.
6. Remove from heat and ladle into bowl to serve.
I wonder how do you clean those dirty looking salted duck eggs? Rinse the while thing under running water??? Or just rub it off with bare hands??? I always rub off the dirt before washing in a "wanted to throw away" plastic bag. And If you have a garden, rinse the egg there, so that the dirt won't clog your sink.
Ar! Really! I'm going to try planting my own goji too, just hope the mealy worms don't eat them off before I do! :) Thanks for the tips. My family loves goji soup and it's good for the eyes;)
ReplyDeletecupcake
Thanks for the goji info..I love "gau gei" soup w/chicken broth, ginger, and eggs. Yum.
ReplyDeleteAngie
cupcake,
ReplyDeleteJust make sure you dun stick the top of the stem into the soil and it'll grow easily.
Hope u get your own goji leaves soon.
Angie,
Hehe, with chicken broth, hmmm!! Sounds yummy.
But here unless use the chicken cube, making own chicken broth seems tedious. You use canned broth in Vancouver? My MIL uses that a lot of canned broth too when she was in US. Bilis broth is a lot easier here.
We do not discard the stems, we stick it in together with the anchovies or bones and boil it for the stock and after that strain it.
ReplyDeleteWendy, I didn't know the salted egg white can cook soup, I throw away the whites when making mooncakes leh, so sayang, next time I know what to do with it liao.
ReplyDeletesh,
ReplyDeleteOh!! That's new to me.
Yeah, the stems have nutrients as well and any changes in taste? I'd love to know.
Jess,
ReplyDeleteI have another recipe coming up on how to use the egg whites of salted egg :)
But only all the whites of your mooncake la!!
Haha.
I didn't know the Gau Gee Choy is goji berry plant. This is good to know. Yea my grandmother used to stick the stems into the soil and they will grown. I tried looking for this type of veggie of make soup with my homemade hum tan but can't seems to find any here.
ReplyDeleteI always confuse by mani chai and gau kee chai. But I know mani chai the leaves are rough, but gau kee chai leaves are smooth. So, this one is gao kee chai? Mani chai is easy to plant too, my mom told me.
ReplyDeleteMy MIL made this soup before, but using chicken egg white, not salted duck egg woh. Wonder how much differ in taste will it be. I guess I just have to try it out myself then! Lol!
ReplyDeleteGert,
ReplyDeleteI was suspecting long ago, until I saw a documentary about Chinese herbs few months back (TVB production), and they showed the goji tree, the host said this is the goji tree, where we eat the gojiberries and eat the leaves with soup, so that was when my doubts were cleared.
Smuggle some back la, next time, haha.
Little Inbox.
The pucuk manis has smaller leaves and I think no thorns.
Gaukee chai has thorns and leaves are bigger and look shiny.
Both are planted the same way, using stems.
Bee,
It taste better than chicken egg, haha!! As all duck eggs will be.
So sad that a friend gave me a goji plant and it died!! I just don't have green fingers :( Love your soup....healthy and refreshing.
ReplyDeletelove this post~ thanks for sharing ^^
ReplyDeleteIt's a lovely and tasty soup!
ReplyDeleteI don't use the leaves but spinach(bayam) and I add pei tan(century egg) besides the salted egg. My daughter's favourite!
MaryMoh,
ReplyDeleteOh, so sorry to hear that they died.
Maybe try again? Put it in another spot around the house? Sometimes the sun or other factors affects the plant, not ur fingers, ahahah!
ah yan,
Thanks
Busygran,
The Cantonese has so so many types of soups and what u said, amaranth with century egg is just another type of quick soups.
My family likes this soup but I've never used salted duck egg in it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip on growing goji plant, may try it on day.
Blessed Homemaker,
ReplyDeleteI hope ur plant grows well and "fat".
:)
Thanks for showing how to clean those salted eggs. I do it the same way as you do, using old newspaper instead of plastic bag...so of course I'd get my hands a bit dirty after that. My MIL tried my way (of cleaning salted eggs and century eggs) and said it's not correct coz her century eggs get all broken or smashed after that. She would soak the eggs in a basin of water to soften the dirt/mud before she clean them.
ReplyDeleteMeldy,
ReplyDeleteI used those "want to throw away bags", before they get thrown, make them useful first.
Soaking the the eggs will make the basin dirty lor, which is why I dun do that. Rather messy in my personal opinion. Maybe it's because I do not have anywhere to discard the dirt water.
Thanks Wendy this is so completely brilliant! I just bought salted eggs for the first time ever today and now I know exactly how i should clean them! And i also bought anchovies today! =D =D
ReplyDelete加了咸蛋的枸杞汤,很特别.
ReplyDeleteCherry Potato,
ReplyDeleteYup, a trick I learnt from a vegetable seller
Wow! what a combination. I never tried duck egg. Thanks for writing post. Now I'll try it. Goji Guice
ReplyDeleteSuzy,
ReplyDeleteIt's salted duck egg :)
Hope u'll like it