Warm and comforting soup for winter—Winter Melon soup with ribs and other options you like.
Winter melon also known as Ash Gourd is quite popular in China. We grow several winter melon vines almost every year when I was still young. I did not like it previously when we were not so rich in food especially meats. Winter melon usually was in large size and we might have it on dining table for several days. And what’s worse, there is no unique or special taste of it.
a large winter melon chunk
But my mind changes a lot after cooking the winter melon chunks with meat, including meatballs, hams and ribs etc. The fat can stimulate the freshness of the winter melon and on the contrast; winter melon makes the meat brighter and less greasy.
For most of the soup recipes, I use high pressure cooker or maybe instant pot is a more familiar term. Electric rice cooker and high pressure cooker are the most important small tools in Chinese kitchen. And they are really excellent assistants. If you do not have one, I highly recommend buying yourself one. During my working day, I finish all the cooking staff within 30 minutes, usually a typical Chinese menu including a meat dish, a vegetable stir fry, a salad and a soup. Rice cooker is steaming rice while high pressure cooker is either making a soup or braising a red cooked pork belly. I may have my bread machine start working for the next breakfast.
High-pressure soups are really super easy and taste great. The bones and meat are so well cooked that the meat can be easily shred from the bone. And it is so quick!!! For normal soups, at least 45 minutes to 1 hour stewing is required. With high pressure cooker, usually 25 minutes is enough.
By the way, if you fall in love with the unique taste of winter melon, you should try winter melon tea in summer.
- 1 pound winter melon , remove the skin and cut into cubes
- 2 large ribs cut into sections
- 3-4 red dates
- 1 teaspoon dried shrimp
- Green onion , chopped for garnishing
- Coriander , chopped for garnishing
- 1 thumb ginger , smashed
- pinch of salt as needed
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Place ribs in clean water, bring to boil and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes. Transfer out and rinse under running water.
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Cut the rind of winter melon and then cut into large chunks.
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Place red dates, dried shrimp, smashed ginger, ribs and winter melon with enough water in high pressure cooker; cook for 15 minutes after boiling. Or you can use a stew pot or slow cooker; cook until the ribs and winter melon are soft.
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Add salt before serving
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Place some chopped green onion and coriander at bottom. And scoop the soup to serving bowl.
Adding chopped green onion and coriander directly to the large pot of soup is not recommended, as they are easy to overcook and spoil the freshness.
Winter melon needs to be matched with meat, bones or ham. There are several options:
Winter melon soup with fresh meatballs
Winter melon soup with ham, black mushrooms and dried shrimp
Love all your recipes! More soup recipes please!
Soups are planned in following months since it is quite cold now. Thanks for the suggestion. Happy cooking!
I have a few Chinese cookbooks, which are quite good and authentic. But none of them actually describe the everyday Chinese menu. So I became a bit wiser now as yours consists of soup, salad, vegetables and meat. With a bowl of rice, I guess?
The winter melon soup looks nice. It’s not a common vegetable here and I’m thinking of possible substitutes. Maybe some sort of pumpkin with a less dark flesh, or even a regular squash. Possibly the squash will not keep its shape very well during cooking.
The instant pot seems to be a very useful device. Guess I could use one, too 🙂
I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas.
Thanks Susanne for your kind blessing. I am busy with the coming Christmas and New Year gifts. I understand because Chinese menu arrangement is quite different from Western cuisines. We do not have starters, main course etc. We describe our menu usually with vegetables stir-fries, soups, salads, meat and staple food (as the steamed rice you mentioned or steamed buns, congee and noodles). That’s really a great inspiration. I will post more photos of my daily menu in the coming year.
Merry Christmas too!
Thank’s a lot Elaine,
this is really a great recipe. I had some trouble identifying the winter melon, as it was labeled “Long Tong Kwa” in my local store, which seems to be a latin transliteration from cantonese if the internet is to be trusted. But anyhow, it’s definitely delicious! Absolutely recommended.
By the way, I always wondered how to make this after I saw the movie “Eat Drink Man Woman” (饮食男女) a couple years ago.
It is a great movie! I love it too, especially the great skills of cutting and preparing the raw food.
It is the winter melon season now. We are eating it frequently in stir-fries and will use it in soup when it is cooled down on our side.
Hi Elaine,
well, it’s still summer here too (although the latitude of the place where I live is more that of northern Manchuria). But I’m a huge fan of “fighting fire with fire” so a hot soup is totally fine with me even if it’s thirty degree Celsius outside 🙂 Anyways, you mentioned stir-fries. With what other ingredients would you use winter melon in those? My first thought was maybe to take the Moo Shu Pork recipe and substitute the cucumber with melon slices.
Hi Elaine,
I have a question regarding the dried shrimp. I’ve always used the kind which was somewhat red/brownish in color and had the shell and head removed. Now recently in the freezer of the Chinese grocery store I found a bag which said “salted dried shrimp” on the label. But they where very tiny whole shrimps (similar in appearance to Korean “Saeujeot” but dried and without the brine).
So my question is, which kind of dried shrimps do you use?
Hi Elaine,
Just wondering ,does it matter how much water we add into the instant pot? is it just enough to cover the ingredients?
Bernicia,
If you plan to use instant pot, your water level should be around 2cm higher then the ingredient level.