Roast Pork Soup

What to eat that is filling, warm, comforting, low-carb, and low fat? How about some terrifically delicious soup with roasted pork?

Roast Pork Soup: As Beautiful as it is Delicious!

There are several tricks that we chefs use to make first-rate soups. We start by jamming as much flavor into the soup stock as possible. And then we cook each of the garnishes separately so that they are at the peak of goodness. And everything is assembled at the last second before going to the table to preserve freshness of and prevent muddling of flavors. This soup is an exercise in just that.

Garnishes for the Soup

This soup has both raw and cooked garnishes, which you see in the photo above, staged for cooking. The cooked garnishes are the pork in the foreground and the green plate in the background. The raw garnishes are the cilantro, snow peas, and pickled mustard stems on the right of the photo.

Just before serving dinner, I quickly sautéed the nappa cabbage, shiitakes, carrots, pressed and spiced tofu, lop cheung sausage, and Chinese chives with finely minced ginger and garlic. After just a minute in the pan, I divided these among our deep soup bowls. Over this, I scattered the snow peas and the mustard stems. On top, I placed three small slices each of roast pork and then over all, I ladled on boiling soup stock, garnished with fresh cilantro, and rang the dinner bell.

Stock, the Key to any Great Soup

While I was prepping vegetables, I put together a stock, starting with a base of chicken stock. Into the stock I put several slabs of ginger, six lightly crushed cloves of garlic, a bunch of cilantro stems from last week, the bulb ends of a bunch of green onions from last week, the stems from the shiitake mushrooms, and the pièce de résistance, four or five fresh double kaffir lime leaves. I hadn't planned on adding lime leaves, but when I saw fresh ones in the market, I couldn't resist. Who can resist their unique and haunting citrus flavor? The stock simmered away while we watched a movie.

Hoisin-Agave Roasted Pork Loin

Early on in the afternoon, I rubbed a piece of very lean pork loin with hoisin sauce, agave nectar, and black pepper and let it sit on the counter to warm slightly before cooking. I roasted it at very high temperature for about 25 minutes to an internal temperature of 135F (knowing it would carry through to 145 or slightly higher while cooling).

All these steps and separate cooking or not of garnishes, really, is arguably a lot of fuss for a bowl of soup. But I'm a chef and this is what we do. And the results? You can't argue with them.

Call Me Surprised

I don't get out away from the restaurant much at all, so I mostly miss comings and goings here in lovely Winchester, VA. I do stay pretty much on top of restaurant openings and closings because, well, I am wired into that loop pretty tightly. But as for other businesses, I'm pretty much the last to know. Still, somehow I managed to hear recently that a new international grocery had opened. I don't remember how I heard—probably from my buddy Shiv who owns Sona Restaurant saying that he had bought karela at a store here in town—but somehow it got on my mental list of things to check out when I had a free moment.

That free moment came yesterday and the store was conveniently located between the grocery store and the restaurant, both stops that we had to make as well. I was prepared to find a small storefront tienda/bodega in the little strip mall where I was told to find the store. I was wholly unprepared to see a medium-sized grocery store emblazoned with a Food Maxx/International Foods/Supermercado sign with a lot of cars parked out front.

Inside, it looked like a traditional grocery store, but all the customers seemed to be Latino and there was no shortage of banda blaring on the speakers. But all the signage was in English. How bizarre! How bizarre!

Not only do they stock karela, they have both kinds, Chinese and Indian. Three kinds of loroco. Two kinds of whole mackerel. Gorgeous yellow-tail snappers. Live crabs. Frozen octopus. 7 or 8 kinds of fresh chorizos. All the frozen pig parts a chef could want. Trays of chicken hearts. Call me surprised!

The prices are better than anywhere else in town on meats, vegetables, and canned goods of the varieties that I might buy. They might be higher on national brand stuff; I don't know, I never buy it. And for things like the fish sauce that I buy from my wholesaler, the prices are lower than my wholesale cost. Bonus: they have my favorite Three Crabs brand of fish sauce. Yay! No more Squid brand for me or for the restaurant!


Above is my haul from yesterday, just a few things for the restaurant: Shanghai bok choy, smoked pork neck bones, salted mustard stems, and Chinese chives.

As I said, I'm a little slow on the uptake. The store has been open for three months so I'm a little behind the times. Details:

Food Maxx, 1107 Berryville Ave, Winchester, VA 22601, (540) 722-4604