Green Radish Digestive Soup

Why people make this soup

Holidays mean big family meals, and big family meals usually mean too much rich, fatty and deep-fried food. If your stomach is on the weaker side, that often shows up as poor digestion, a bloated belly or irregular bowels. In Cantonese home kitchens the simple fix is a pot of soup built around green radish and a few classic “food-mover” ingredients. Nourilo keeps this one on hand for the day after a feast.

Method

1. Peel the green radish and cut into chunks.
2. Slice the lean pork and blanch in boiling water, then drain.
3. Rinse and soak the remaining ingredients.
4. Add everything to 2.4 L of water and simmer down to about 1.2 L. Serve.

Nourilo’s Tips

Radish seed (lai fu zi) is the seed of the radish — it helps with digestion, eases distension and settles phlegm. This soup is genuinely helpful for indigestion, a tight bloated upper belly, and constipation. One caution: if you are drinking qi-tonic teas such as ginseng, do not have this soup, as it pulls in the opposite direction.