Food for the season

It's been a really short spring and according to the Chinese almanac, summer is here. Pauline D. Loh looks at some healthy recipes for that change in season.

The Cantonese home cook has a huge stock of recipes for every season. She is the firmest believer that "food is medicine" and that her family's health needs to be carefully watched throughout the year.

Recipes for winter, spring, summer and fall use the best of seasonal ingredients to extract every bit of beneficial nourishment.

As a transplanted southerner in arid Beijing, I am quickly learning to appreciate the moisturizing soups that I took for granted at my mother's dining table. My skin has soaked up countless tubes of moisturizers, and the drinking machine has not stopped dispensing hot water for tea throughout the winter but beauty as they say, starts from within.

The parched season is passing, and perhaps the scattered spring showers will herald a wetter, if hotter, summer.

In the meantime, we need to work with nature and make sure we are eating and drinking right.

Spring and early summer is when the erratic weather creates the most conducive conditions for cold and flu germs. We need to boost the vitamin intake and help our bodies build up better immunity.

Take in lots of water, lots of green, and as Michael Pollan says, eat food that your grandmother would recognize. And add to that, "avoid anything you cannot easily pronounce" - like the long list of preservatives and coloring that appears on the labels of most processed food.

Well, try saying "asparagus, burdock and carrot" instead.

That's the ABC of some of the freshest vegetables now available and of course, they are great sources of the restorative nutrients that our bodies crave after winter.

If you are wandering down the aisles of the markets and supermarkets, you cannot miss the beautiful jade-green bunches of asparagus that's fronting the vegetable stalls. They are nice and fat and only need the briefest cooking for a delicious dish that's chockful of taste and goodness.

I'm sure you know all about how good they are for you, especially if you are currently pregnant. Folic acid is necessary to help the baby grow well in the womb.

Burdock, that long hairy root you see stacked by the side of the vegetable stall, is another staple for the "food is medicine" practitioner. It has plenty of nutritional benefits and is widely used in macrobiotic diets. It is believed to be antibiotic and antipyretic, and there are claims that it is anticarcinogenic.

As far as the Cantonese home cook is concerned, this is something you cook in soups to clear the blood and lower blood sugar.

And finally, the humble carrot, so often reduced to just a side-act in any dish, is a powerhouse of taste and nutrition. Right now, tiny baby carrots are being sold and they really need just a good scrub and nothing else to become a sweet, healthy snack.

Cooked, the orange root becomes sugar sweet and it generously adds flavor to any other vegetable that shares the dish. Also, it will literally brighten your eyes, being the main source of beta-carotene and vitamin A.

And then there are the pantry basics that are always ready for the sleight of hand that will turn them into more miraculous creations for the family meal. Tucked away behind the staples of rice and noodles will be little packets of snow fungus, Chinese dried red dates and sweet apricot kernels - which slowly simmered over a low fire with lean meat - will make another nutritious, delicious brew.

Here are a few dishes from my mother's kitchen that utilizes the best of these ingredients, and most of all, they probably take you less than half-an-hour to prepare. Now, that's fast food.

Recipe | Chilled asparagus with spicy sauce

Ingredients:

350 g asparagus spears

3-4 cloves garlic

2 red chili, seeded

1 tomato, seeded and chopped

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Snap off the tough ends of the asparagus spears and rinse quickly. Blanche in hot water for 5 minutes and immediately refresh in cold water.

2. Arrange asparagus spears neatly on a plate and chill.

3. Peel garlic and chop up roughly.

4. Slice the seeded chili into fine strips.

5. Remove the pulp and seeds from the tomato and chop up the flesh.

6. Heat a spoonful of oil in a non-stick pan and gently fry the garlic until lightly gold and fragrant. Add the chopped chili and tomato and stir well.

7. Reduce the sauce and add salt.

8. Spoon the sauce over the chilled asparagus and serve immediately.

Recipe | Burdock and carrot soup

Ingredients:

1 burdock root (about 30cm long)

1 carrot

120 g lean pork fillet

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Slice the pork fillet thinly and set aside.

2. Peel and cut the carrot into thin sticks.

3. Shave off the hairy skin of the burdock and cut into chunks. Avoid wetting the burdock, as it turns slimy.

4. Heat up a pot of water to boiling and add the pork fillet slices, stirring with a chopstick to separate them.

5. When the water returns to a boil, add the carrot sticks and burdock chunks. Turn the heat down and let the soup simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the burdock is soft and tender.

6. Add salt to taste just before serving.

Food notes:

This is a traditional soup that diabetics are advised to drink regularly as the burdock lowers blood sugar levels. My mother, a geriatric diabetic, also eats the burdock, and says the effect is even better that way.

Recipe | Snow fungus, sweet apricot kernel and jujube soup

Ingredients:

50 g snow fungus (white fungus), soaked

50g sweet apricot kernels (nanxing)

2-3 Chinese dried red dates or jujubes, seeds removed

100 g lean pork, cut into chunks

2 to 3 slices Yunnan ham

Method:

1. Soak the snow fungus in plenty of water and trim off the dark root end.

2. Heat up a pot of water and add the pork chunks when it is at a rapid boil. After 3 minutes, pour away the water and rinse the pork pieces. This will give you a nice clear soup without any blood scum floating on top.

3. Heat up another pot of water and when it boils, add the blanched pork chunks, soaked and trimmed snow fungus, sweet apricot kernels and the seeded jujubes.

4. After the soup boils, reduce the heat and simmer for about half-an-hour or more if you can afford the time. Season to taste just before serving.

Food notes:

Snow fungus is known as "vegetarian bird's nest" for its high collagen content. It's supposed to be good for the complexion and the bronchial system.

Sweet or "southern" apricot kernels are larger than the slightly cyanotic and smaller bitter or "northern" apricot kernels. Both are used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure coughs or soothe the throat.