Bone Marrow Soup w/ Winter Melon and Kelp [冬瓜海带棒骨汤]

“Eat what you wish to mend”, my parents repeated to me as I told them about my nagging knee injury from running. “Since your joints are damaged, you need to have some bone soup to help it heal.”

Serves 2 | Prep time is 20 minutes | Cook time is 4 hours

Ingredients

Main Things

• Pork bones, about eight 4-inch pieces (2 large bones cut by the butcher)

• Winter Melon, 1/6 of a melon

• Kelp (a type of fresh seaweed), 1/2 lb

• OR, can use carrot and sweet corn if the above two ingredients are hard to come by

Base

• Ginger, 5 pieces

• Star Anise, 1 piece

• Bay Leaf, 1 piece

• Chinese cooking wine/white wine, 2 tbsps.

Garnish (Optional)

• Scallion, thinly sliced, 1 stalk

• Cilantro, 2-4 sprigs

• White Pepper Powder, to taste

Steps

1. Add pork bones and water to a pot, and cook until it boils again..

2. Meanwhile, prepare the base ingredients.

3. Take out pork bones and place base ingredients together in a pot. Then, fill the water until it just submerges the mixture.

4. Simmer for 3 hours on low heat.

5. Meanwhile, chop winter melon into 1/2 inch thick slices.

6. Place kelp into a large bowl of water and let sit for 1 hour. This gets rid of the over-saltiness of the kelp.

7. Once soup is ready, put the soup through a sieve. Pick out and save pork bones for to serve separately.

8. Add winter melon and kelp to the bone soup and boil at medium heat for 30 minutes, or until winter melon is soft and translucent, but not mushy. Serve.

9. For some pork bones, they may have bone marrow (like the one pictured below). Take a straw to sip the bone marrow. Bone marrow will help improve the strength and health of your bones, as well as reduce inflammation in the joints.