Recipes

Serves two
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
Ivy gourd (Coccinia grandis) shoots, 150 g
Onion, 1 about 200 g
Pumpkin, 1 about 300 g
Bacon, 4 slices
Butter, 10 g
Flour, 2 tablespoons
Ground black pepper, 1 teaspoon
Salt, 1 teaspoon
Soup stock (meat, seafood or vegetable), 1 cup
Whipping cream, 1 cup

Preparation

1. Rinse and dry ivy gourd shoots, cut into 3-cm pieces, and set aside.
2. Rinse pumpkin and steam in a pot until half cooked. Slice a portion off the top and carefully remove the inside flesh, keeping the outer rind intact.
3. Blend ivy gourd shoot pieces and pumpkin flesh in a blender.
4. Rinse and dry onion, and cut both onion and bacon into 2-5 mm pieces.
5. Fry onion pieces in pot first, add bacon pieces and continue frying until bacon just begins to crisp. Pour in soup stock, add ivy gourd and pumpkin, and stir evenly until the mixture boils.
6. Add salt and black pepper to soup. Thicken the soup with whipping cream and flour. Cook gently until flour loses its raw taste.
7. Pour the soup into the half-cooked pumpkin and serve hot.

Variations
Ivy gourd shoots can be replaced with pumpkin shoots, tropical violet shoots, chayote shoots, or bird’s nest fern fronds.