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Soup in Chinese cooking

Soups in Chinese cooking are used very differently. At ordinary Chinese home meals, there is usually a common bowl of soup on the table of which you drink with your porcelain spoon any time of the meal, especially toward the end. Traditionally in China, since water is never and tea rarely served on the table, soup acts a drink.

In soups as well as other savory dishes, the Chinese cook uses MSG. This substance salt-like in appearance, has the virtue of bringing out and accentuating the flavor of any foods with which it is employed. In Chinese homes, where chicken figures frequently, chicken stock is, logically used for soups. But thrifty cooks buy giblets whenever possible, and at the same time, ask for the feet in which there is more goodness than one might think. Chicken gizzards, hearts, skinned feet and necks make beautifully clear stock. Chicken livers, which are parts of the giblets one buys, are never used in the stock but are reserved for inclusion in special dishes. Another to which we are more likely to resort, these days, is those very useful chicken cubes which are pretty generally available. In a Chinese restaurant, where they often boil or reheat pork, beef, chicken, duck, and various bones, there is a common soup stock, usually very dilute, that can be served with anything else and is called ' high soup'.

Soups may be divided into light soups and heavy soups. A light soup's ingredients are more for flavorings than for eating. The excellence of Chinese light soups is due to the clear stock and the fresh flavor of the added ingredients which is achieved by the speed at which they are cooked. On the whole, Chinese restaurants do not make thin soups, probably because people are not prepared to pay just to drink a thin soup.