Making Pork Ribs and Vegetables Soup

My Mother-in-Law went to Bali over the weekend so last night I cooked dinner for my husband and Father-in-Law. Yesterday evening, I posted the photo of the clear soup I was making on my Instagram account. I thought nobody would be interested in its recipe; however, this morning, a fellow blogger asked for this soup's ingredients so I thought I might as well share the recipe in my blog. 

This Chinese-style soup recipe is actually my Mother-in-Law's. She cooks this soup almost every week and I can see why she cooks this so often - the soup is full of nutrition, refreshing and delish. It is seasoning free. The sweet and salty tastes of this soup naturally come from the varieties of vegetables I put into the pot. The savoury taste obviously comes from the pork ribs that go into the soup. No MSG needed! 

Please note that unlike my recipes for baking, the ingredients stated below are just my rough estimates. I didn't really measure the exact ingredients I used for boiling the soup as long as I achieved the balance of everything. I thickly cut all the vegetables that I used for the soup so they are not mashed after boiling them for about 45 mins to 1 hour.

My boiling pork ribs and vegetables clear soup. 

In this picture, I haven't put the tomatoes and sweet onions into the pot.

Pork Ribs and Vegetables Soup

Ingredients:

• 250gr Pork ribs (paiku/排骨), cleaned
• 2 Sweet corns, thickly cut
• 1 Carrot, peeled and thickly cut
• 1 Potato, peeled and halved
• 1 Tomato, halved
• 4-5 Thick slices of zha cai, cleaned (this pickled vegetable is very salty so make sure to wash it with lots of water before cooking it)
• 1/2 Sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 4-5 Medium bowls of water

Tutorials:

1. In a large pot, boil water, pork ribs and sweet corns for 10-15 minutes on large fire.
2. Once the pork ribs and sweet corns are almost fully cooked, put the cut zha cai, carrots, potatoes and sliced sweet onions into the boiling soup. 
3. Reduce the heat by boiling the soup on small fire and bring the soup to simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Don't forget to add a little bit of water every once in a while when boiling the soup to maintain the amount of the water/soup in the pot. 
4. Add the halved tomatoes into the soup and bring the soup to simmer again for about 15 minutes.
5. Turn off the heat and serve the soup warm.

Normally, after meal, we only drink the nutritious soup and don't really eat the boiled ingredients but I always eat the sweet corns and carrots too!

P/S: Thank you, my husband for teaching me how to make this soup for the first time.