Daikon Pork Ribs Soup

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Daikon pork ribs soup (白萝卜排骨汤) is a homely Chinese soup. This recipe is for those who prefer a pure daikon (white radish) soup, without the addition of carrots. Dried mushrooms, mushroom seasoning powder and dried scallops provide a delicious umami depth to the soup, which more than make up for the lack of carrots. My family said that the resultant taste, oddly but in a good way resembles our favourite tonjiru soup (Japanese pork & vegetable soup).

See Also:

• Carrot & Daikon Pork Ribs Soup Recipe
• Rice Cooker Chicken Daikon Soup Recipe
• Easy Chinese Soup Recipes

This is where I start from. It was the weekend when I made this recipe, so yay! I get to use my slow cooker. In my crock pot pictured above, there are blanched pork ribs (using prime ribs on this day but spare ribs are just as good), daikon chunks, red dates, dried scallops and the trio garlic-ginger-onion immunity boosters. I also added thin dried shiitake mushrooms. The dried mushrooms are cheap due to their thinness (but just as nutritious and delicious) and best of all, do not require soaking or prolonged simmering. They will work well for both the slow cooker or the stove. Just snip off the mushroom stalks, rinse the caps, then squeeze out any excess water. Wolfberries also need not be soaked in advance, and can simply be added to the pot during the last 5 minutes of cooking. I would say this is a really lazy but efficient way of making soup.

I accidentally left my slow cooker on HIGH for more than 3 hours.  You can see that with prolonged simmering, the daikon turned brown after absorbing the rich broth. My family who usually avoids eating the daikon, said it was delicious and ate all of them. With this soup, we had multigrain rice and a pickled vegetable to complete the meal.