Double boil, more toil and trouble?

The heat here is nothing less than sweltering and earthen jars that the soups sit in are over a meter tall. Working here, if you ask me is no easy feat. But nonetheless, the good people at Earthen Jar here get up everyday to make great soup and they do everything with a smile.

There is soup and then there is double-boiled soup. Here I would say it is great double-boiled soup. Double-boiled, is like double the trouble but the flavours are twice as bold. When it comes to soup, slow cooking prevails and I think the Cantonese have patiently mastered the art of 老火湯 “old fire soups”. The superiority of the double boil is that the ingredients are slowly allowed to relax in their watery environments and to gradually release their nutrients into the soup. Very little moisture is loss in the process and because of the gentler heat as compared to boiling. This is how I would explain it ... imagine the molecules of liquid dancing around and making merry with the other molecules (please use your discretion; the chemical basis of this argument is my imagination) it is by this unhurried process mutually intensifying the overall flavour.

Here at Earthen Jar, they serve six healing soups: Healthy chicken soup, ginseng chicken soup, pork with or without lotus root, black chicken and duck soup… Correction. Not just soups but good precious soups done the old fashion way that preserve delicious and won’t break the bank.

Amongst the six, we tried four. Between the ginseng chicken and healthy chicken soup, the first had a slightly herbal flavour lent by the fresh ginseng whilst the essence of the chicken was clearer. The black chicken soup was by far the sweetest from dates not in a saccharine manner but a little too much for me. The pork I expected to be the sweetest of all turned out to be the most delicate and soothing like its calming benefits. What was surprisingly good was serving of rice the mushroom and dried shrimp, a fragrant sidekick that supports the bigger flavoured soups.

This place is likely to be overlooked. It sits a corner and is overshadowed by its neighbouring eating house which houses heavyweight hawkers such as Rong Cheng Bak Kut The, Hup Seng Braise Duck Rice and a smaller outfit of Ah Orh. We only chanced upon it because we were pointed in that direction by fellow foodies that we met eating at the neighbouring eating house. Well, now that we’ve found it, I’m satisfied and gratified.

Earthen Jar Treasure Herbal Soup
Blk 22 Sin Ming Road
#01-244, 77 Eating House