There is a saying in the popular China on the Tip of the Tongue: The nobler the ingredients, the more delicious they should be, which is the highest level of food. Tricholoma matsutake is a gift from nature, and ducks are extremely healthy and delicious food cultivated by human beings. Old duck broth with little seasoning is the most nourishing.

First of all, just as the old hen is the main force of stewed chicken, the old duck is the best stewed duck soup in autumn. There is a folk saying that "the male duck eats in summer and the female duck eats in autumn", because the male duck is slightly cold and the female duck is slightly warm. If you have the opportunity to buy live ducks, the best choice is to buy old local ducks in rural areas and female ducks over one year old. The female duck is commonly known as the duck, and the male duck is commonly known as the mallard. Most of them are small, slow-moving female ducks with single feather color, while most of them are brightly colored, lively and large male ducks. Most of the frozen "half-sliced ducks" sold in supermarkets are large-scale farmed ducks, so there is little room for choice, but you should choose fresh and bright colors.

Secondly, ginger and radish should be put in the stewed old duck soup. There is a saying in China that eating radish in winter and ginger in summer is healthy all year round. In autumn, we can put radish and ginger together in the old duck soup to push the healthy diet to the extreme. There is a famous dish in Huaiyang cuisine called "Ginger Duck", which is to add a lot of old ginger when making old duck soup. When the cold duck meets the hot ginger, it becomes a mild broth, which is quite in line with China's golden mean dialectical diet philosophy. Stewed duck with radish has the effects of clearing away heat, moistening lung and relieving cough.

Third, duck soup needs to be stewed in cold water. Stewed duck soup is the most likely to produce a strong earthy smell, which is also the main reason why many people reject this soup. In fact, you can remove the fishy smell of duck soup with a little attention when cooking. Put the duck in a cold pot, add enough cold water at one time, add ginger slices and onions, then boil it with high fire and stew it slowly from noon to night. After the duck meat is basically cooked, add radish, wax gourd or other seasonings, so that the stewed duck soup will no longer have earthy smell.

What are the ingredients of old duck soup?

The lighter the old duck soup is, the better. Just add some onions and ginger. Generally, there is no need to enlarge seasonings such as pepper and cinnamon and traditional Chinese medicine. In the TV series "Dae Jang Geum", Queen Han Shanggong stewed ducks with ginseng, red dates, walnuts, pine nuts, garlic, ginger, onions and other raw materials to make whole duck soup, and introduced the function of whole duck soup to replenish vitality. Nutrition experts believe that American ginseng should be used instead of ginseng, because American ginseng is a warm tonic. The ginger and red dates in this soup have the function of dispelling cold, which is more suitable for tonic in late autumn or winter.

In addition to radish and wax gourd, kelp and old cucumber are also common ingredients suitable for stewing soup with old ducks. Stewed ducks and kelp can soften blood vessels and lower blood pressure, which has a good auxiliary effect on arteriosclerosis, hypertension and heart disease in the elderly. The stewed old cucumber with duck meat tastes delicious, and the cucumber enzyme in cucumber has strong biological activity, which can effectively promote the metabolism of the body and has the functions of prolonging life and resisting aging. Stewing old duck and sea cucumber together has a strong nourishing effect, supplementing the yin of the five internal organs and the heat of tuberculosis caused by fatigue.