Pig Maw Soup

Growing up, pig maw soup is one of my comfort food. Strangely, I can't remember how did I acquire the taste of pepper or texture of pig maw from young. Why do I enjoy it so much?

Perhaps it is the consequence of consuming a bowl of the soup: the peppery of the soup dispenses into my tummy and stays warm for a long while. Perhaps, it serves as a reminder of my mum to take good care of my weak stomach these days. To her, this peppery soup helps to strengthen weak digestive system.

And over these years, I managed to convince my daughters to eat pig maw too. If I have the time and strength to do the cleaning of the pig maw (usually you would need 20-30 minutes standing by the sink for getting a satisfy result of a pig maw) during weekend, it would appear on our dinning table in one of the weekday after. Conveniently, it has become a one-pot meal for my family. I could easily gather all the needed ingredients and prepare the soup in the morning and boil in the pot of the vacuum thermal cooker for at least 30 minutes long before I head out to work.

So this is my version of pig maw soup-
Ingredient:

• 1 to 1.5 litter of water
• 1 clean pig maw (approx 300-350gm for a family of four like us)
• 1 chicken breast (I bought one with bone), blanched
• 1 tsp of cracked white peppercorns (approx)
• 50gm of gingko nuts
• Cabbage, torn smaller pieces  (depends on how much you like, it can opt out)
• Shiitake mushroom (optional)
• Meatballs (optional)

Method: 

A.  Cleaning
To clean the pig maw, first use scissor to trim the fat. Then, turn it inside out, scrub the inner lining with salt. Lot of salt. Rinse, and continue rubbing with salt to get rid of the slimy and greasy residue, until you are satisfy. After two or three rounds of scrubbing and rinse, scald the pig maw with boiling water to scrap away  impurities that are now 'cooked'. Cleaning pig maw requiring multiple scrubbing. With the help of lime juice, corn flour or tapioca flour, the process of cleaning would be faster. By the end of the cleaning, the pig maw is half cooked (and salted too).

B.  When you are ready to boil the soup:

1. Bring water to boil, add in white peppercorns, the whole cleaned pig maw and chicken breast.
2. Slowly add in gingko nuts and shiitake mushroom.
3. Turn the stove fire to the max and bring to a boil, then reduce the fire to simmer the pot of soup, the longer the better.
4. I then transfer the pot into vacuum thermal cooker (which continue the duty of 'simmering')
5. Upon my return after a long day from work, I will take the pot out from the vacuum thermal cooker to boil the soup again. But, before the soup is boiling hot, I take out the pig maw to cut into bite-sized pieces. By now, the pig maw is soften. 
6. Add in cabbage.
7. Add in meatballs (if any).
8. Ready to serve. 

My mum taught me a unique way to get the result of peppery of the soup- don't crush the peppercorns on purpose but recycle the white peppercorns. Yes, one way to "save" the peppercorns is put them all in a soup bag and boil. But sometime I don't. The peppercorns will crack or "open-up" by itself after first or second boil of the soup. We believe that the taste of the soup will be sweet peppery with the peppercorns that are being cracked after long hour of hot boilings. Since the peppercorns has a way to be crashed, I don't crush my peppercorns on purpose, haha ;p.

Generally, my first pot of soup with the (un-crushed) peppercorns are more (like double). However, the peppery level is very low, almost none, suitable to introduce to young children. Do sprinkle pepper powder for adults' consumption. As the peppercorns was put in a bag, I would collect back the peppercorn, wash after the first boiling and freeze them for next cooking/consumption. Through this way, it helps to train my girls to acquire the peppery soup slowly.

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