Canh Bi Do recipe - Vietnamese Pumpkin Soup
Vietnamese Pumpkin Soup (Canh Bi Do) is a delicious healthy, nutritious, and filling vegetable soup that is perfect for meals every day particularly during winter. This simple and quick soup can be prepared in one pot in less than an hour.
Ingredients
- 14 oz of peeled, uncooked butternut squash (or Kabocha squash, or other varieties of cooking pumpkins)
- 5 oz of ground pork (with a low proportion of fat preferentially)
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt (to taste)
- olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 3 1/4 cup of water
- 1 teaspoon of fish sauce an option (to taste)
- Scallions, thinly sliced
- black pepper
- cilantro, chopped roughly
Instructions
- Cut the squash into smaller pieces that are about 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick. Set aside. Mix ground pork and 1 teaspoon salt.
- Set a saucepan on medium-high heat. Heat an amount of oil. When the oil is hot then add the minced garlic and cook for a few minutes until it becomes fragrant.
- Add the ground pork. Stir and cook while breaking the meat. Then add the other 1/2 teaspoon salt and keep stirring till the meat is not pink anymore on the exterior.
- Add water to the pot and bring it up to an unbeatable boil. Clean any foam off and then reduce temperatures to moderate simmer. Cover the pot with the lid loosely and cook for 5-10 minutes.
- Remove the lid and add the squash pieces. Turn up the temperature and let the soup simmer to an unending simmer. Then , you can skim the foam off and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover the pot with a lid that is slightly in a bid and cook for approximately 10 minutes and until squash has become cooked according to your preferences.
- Check the soup for taste and alter the seasoning using salt or fish sauce according to your taste. Transfer the soup into serving bowls. Sprinkle chopped scallion, cilantro and chopped over the top, and sprinkle with black pepper. Serve right away.
Notes
I've been able to get 14 grams of butternut squash that has been peeled from around 18-20 oz of peeled squash (about half the size of a squash). I would suggest making use of ground pork that has only a small volume of fat. If you only can find pork that contains the highest percentage of fat (such as 20 percent) You can cook it for a while to render some fat before removing any extra fat out of the pan.