Yin Chen, Adzuki Bean & Mung Bean Soup

Why people make this soup

As the weather turns warm and humid in late winter and spring, it becomes easy for dampness to accumulate inside the body — especially for people who sit most of the day, move little, and tend to eat cold, sweet, or fried foods. When internal dampness combines with the external damp-heat of the season, the result is a familiar sluggishness: that heavy-headed, groggy feeling where even a full night of sleep leaves you tired. For those who also stay up late, or have liver function concerns (liver inflammation, fatty liver, or elevated liver enzymes), Nourilo recommends this soup: three humble, inexpensive ingredients that together are traditionally associated with clearing liver heat, easing dampness, and lifting that foggy, heavy feeling.

Method

1. Rinse yin chen under cold water.
2. Soak adzuki beans and mung beans in cold water for 30 minutes; drain.
3. Combine all ingredients with 2.1 L of water in a pot.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer.
5. Cook for 1 hour until reduced to 0.9–1.2 L.
6. Add rock sugar or slab sugar to taste if desired, stir to dissolve, and serve.

Nourilo’s Tips

• The soup is light, fragrant, and not heavily medicinal — perfectly pleasant to drink.
• To reduce the cooling nature for weaker constitutions: add dried tangerine peel (chen pi), a couple of slices of ginger, and some dried fish; you can also add lean pork for a heartier meal soup.
• Fresh earth tuckahoe root (tu fu ling) can be added if dampness is severe.
• If you know you have a cold spleen-stomach constitution, do not use this soup — try a cloud poria, white atractylodes, and flat bean coat water (yun ling, bai zhu, bian dou yi shui) for dampness instead.