Soup Insomnia

I have strange sleeping habits because of my work. I call it the Vampire Hours.


It also causes me bouts of insomnia interspersed with uncontrollable lapse of narcolepsy. So when I saw this recipe on happyhomemaker88's blog, I thought it was worth a try. Till I read the recipe. There wasn't a single herb in sight. Darn!


It also looked like a normal Chinese soup, except with less flavour. I am used to Cantonese soups which are stronger in flavour and a load more ingredients, I think, since I learnt most of my Chinese soup-making techniques in Hong Kong or from Hong Kong cooks. This looked rather bland at a glance. And it also included one of my lesser favoured Chinese ingredients - dried, salted fish.


But hey, I will give anything a try once.


I dutifully went and got all the ingredients and decided to substitute half the amount of dried, salted fish with dried oysters, to make it more palatable.


Despite my misgivings (and I had a lot, from the blandness issue to the cooking technique and handling of ingredients), I followed the recipe to the T. Almost. In the end, I had to give in to my need for more flavour and just added one item. I wanna sleep but I also need flavour in my food.


The original cook gave this soup a really long name - er, I will just call it Soup Insomnia, alright? I also halved the recipe as she was obviously cooking for a whole family and I'm just making it for the ole housemate and, well, me!

Soup Insomnia
500g tai bok choy
50g salted fish/dried oysters - I used 50g of each as I found the soup so bland
250g pork ribs - I used spare ribs so there's less pork as I am not keen on it
1 slab soft tofu
1 1/2 L water


Cook all ingredients together on simmer for 4 hours. Season to taste.


That's it. See? She says to season it to taste. Holy cow, I added in half a cube of chicken stock and 1.2 tsp salt with 5 dashes of white pepper before it tasted a level above sky juice otherwise. Wow, so tastelessness cures insomnia? I hope not 'cos I'm doomed then.


The cooking technique also troubled me. I understand the slow cooking concept of traditional Chinese tonics. But there's no herbs in this so pourquoi? Especially because you are using tai bok choy which can get really wilted and slimey when cooked to death like this. And soft tofu? You have to be so careful when you stir then as it will just break apart to little pieces.


I couldn't do it. I dutifully put in half the tai bok choy to cook and added the rest only in the last hour of cooking. Even then I winced to see their state at the end. I actually apologised for abusing them so. I felt so undeserving of their freshness.


The end result is the soup is still not as flavourful as I would have liked but it was easy to down. My Chinese housemate said it smelled good at any rate.


I do not know if it works but I will give it a go and update later.

Update 1:  I drank the soup.  It doesn't work.  I still could not sleep and when I did, it was per normal.  Maybe it needs a few doses before the effects are felt.  I shall keep an open mind until I consume the remainder of the soup tomorrow.

Update 2: Two days later, still no effect although the soup got tastier with each progressive re-heating.  Sigh, so that's a myth busted.  This soup does not work.  The quest continues.