Recipe submitted by Stacey Lau, the granddaughter of Sui Ching Lau
The perfect Chinese dinner never feels quite complete without soup. This year I asked my grandma (Sui Ching Lau) to share her recipe for sei mei tong, meaning four flavor soup, but it can really be as many flavors as you want to add.
It’s a popular Cantonese dish, and my grandma’s recipe was influenced by people she met and her experiments with the myriad herbs available to her from my grandpa’s herbal shop. It’s a soup she would make when her kids, and their families, came home for the weekend and one she still makes today.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, this dish expels dampness by benefiting the spleen and stomach. It is also said to enhance the appearance of the skin. Hopefully, with your own influence and experiments, you’ll create your own take on this soup that will become a regular in your dinner rotation.
Ingredients:
- Dried radix dioscorea/Chinese yam slices (支淮山）
- Dried polygonatum odoratum/solomon’s seal slices (玉竹片）
- Bitter northern apricot kernels*（北杏）
- Sweet southern apricot kernels（南杏）
- Lotus seeds (蓮子)
- Fox nuts (芡實)
- Pork bone/meat of your choice
*these kernels must be cooked thoroughly and eaten in limited amounts due to cyanide content
Directions:
As with most traditional recipes, there are no measurements! Take a handful of each herb, but a little less of the Chinese yam slices and bitter northern apricot kernels, and add it to a pot along with the pork bones. Add enough water to cover the ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer for 2 hours and enjoy!
Stacey Lau was presented the 2023 Gim Hong & Sun Woo Lee Memorial Award for a top college senior. Stacey was a food science and technology major who graduated summa cum laude at Cal State Los Angeles.
