White Radish Soup with Abalone Slices

Recently it rains a lot, I like rainy day especially when the weather is warm or on a lazy weekend. But the timing got to be right. If it rain at late afternoon at 5pm on week days, it is a pain because there will be big jam & my kid will come back late. Hubby will come back late.We will have to eat late dinner. Prefer to have my dinner no later than 7.15pm so that I can be kind to the tummy.

This is a very simple soup but comforting. It looks luxurious due to the abalone slices. While I am shopping in the Chinese herba shop, I spotted some cheap dried abalone slices on sales. You do not need to buy the whole abalone, you can get pretty good bargain buying the half abalone slices. Initially I have no intention of cooking it with the radish soup. But, the dried octopus was out of stocks. So, I use these abalone slices as replacement. The outcome was pleasing.

Ingredients (3-4 servings):
300g soup bones
2 liter of water
6ea red dates
1 whole white radish
4-5 slices of dry abalone slices (or 1ea of dried octopus which is more or less same size with my hand)
2 dried scallops

Method:
1) Must pre-prepare the dry abalone slices.
-boil a pot of water with 4 slices of gingers, 2 stalks of spring onion & 2 tbsp of rice wine & abalone slices. Let is boil for 5 mins with lid on.
-this is to remove the unpleasant smell of the dried abalone.
- off the fire & let it soak in the hot water for 4-5 hours with lid on.
- later rinse it with water, then it is only ready to use.
2)De-skin the white radish, chop into big pcs.
3)Remove the seed of the red dates. Clean with running water.
4)Clean the dried scallops with running water.
5) Wash the bones. Boil a pot of hot water & then put in the bones, let it simmer for 3-5mins. The soup will be clear & nice.
6)Put everything inside the pressure cooker.Boil for 30-40 mins with slow fire.
or
7)If you use normal pots, you may need to add another extra 800ml of water due to the evaporation. Once the water boiled, turn it to slow fire & boil it for 3-4 hours.
8) Serve warm.