Roasted Pork and Preserved Mustard Green Soup

I am actually a little bit embarrassed about this soup because it came about due to me misunderstanding a recipe.
Chef & Sommelier did a tasty looking Braised Chinese Mustard Greens with Roast Pork, Mushrooms and Dried Scallops which got me galloping (it is after all the year of the horse) to the pork section at Aeon to get siew yoke (roasted pork).

I could not find any Chinese Mustard Greens because this vegetable likes to play tricks with me. On days when I don't want to buy any, there will be bunches of fresh and beautiful mustard greens displayed on the shelves. Whether in Tesco or Aeon it is the same. But when I want to buy some, they would all disappear. Grrrr....So I thought, oh well, I'll just get the pickled ones and be done with it.

When I got home, I happily set my groceries down and quickly nipped upstairs to the computer to check Alvin's recipe. Yikes! It is a braised dish lah! I really don't know why I thought it was a soup. I wanted soup and that's why I did not cook the braised dish. The only thing I followed was to deep fry the garlic cloves. And I am glad I did that because it made a difference to the soup.

I love the deep fried garlic cloves.

There were 2 carrots and 3 tomatoes sitting in the fridge and they all joined the pickled mustard greens and siew yoke in the soup pot. I also added 2 pieces of asam gelugor and 4 dried chillies into the soup. You've guessed it, this is not something new but the old "Chye Boey" soup which is usually cooked with leftovers. No regrets whatsoever as the soup turned out so great. It was salty and sour with lots of smoky flavor from the siew yoke. After a day or two, the flavors were even better. A delicious outcome from a recipe misunderstood!

Roasted Pork and Preserved Mustard Green Soup

Recipe source : Phong Hong (In a moment of confusion)

Ingredients :

- Roasted Pork (Siew Yoke) about 500g, sliced

- 2 packets of preserved mustard greens (400g)

- 2 ripe tomatoes, cut into quarters

- 2 small carrots, cut into chunks

- 2 pieces asam gelugor (use less if you don't want too sour)

- 4 dried chillies

- 10 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole (optional but do it for more flavour)

- 1.5 litres water or enough to cover the ingredients

Method :

1. Heat oil in wok and deep fry the garlic cloves until golden brown. Remove and set aside.

2. Rinse the pickled mustard greens and slice into bite sized pieces.

3. In a soup pot, add roasted pork, pickled mustard greens, tomatoes, carrots, asam gelugor, dried chillies and fried garlic.

4. Pour in the water to cover the ingredients and bring to a boil.

5. Lower heat and simmer covered for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The longer you simmer, the more flavours will be released into the soup. 

6. Best kept for a day before serving to develop the flavours.

Note : No salt is added because the siew yok and pickled mustard greens are already salty enough.

I love this soup with lots of freshly cracked black pepper and crispy fried shallots.