Before I stop taking meat, making carrots soup is so common – just add those pork ribs and carrots and a lot of onions. Now, it is harder, because if only use carrots without pork ribs, the taste may be too plain.

To bring up more flavour, we need to add in other ingredients which are not common in non-vegetarian soups. In this recipe, the book uses some almonds, which is actually very good for lungs.

Ingredients
1 medium size white radish
2 regular size carrots
4 pieces of vegetarian chicken (or a handful of dried mussles for non-vegetarian)
4 tbsp of sweet (south) almonds (南杏)
1 tbsp of bitter (north) almonds (北杏)
2 candied dates (蜜枣)
1/4 dried tangerine peel (陈皮)

Method
1. Peel radish and carrots. Cut into large pieces.
2. Wash and drain vegetarian chicken (if using mussles, soak for a while).
3. Bring 1.5L water to the boil together with dried tangerine peel.
4. Add in other ingredients and bring to boil again.
5. Reduce to low heat, continue cooking for 2 hours.
6. Season with salt if prefer (don’t think necessary).

About a month ago, when I went to Jusco supermarket with MIL, we saw this frozen vegetarian curry chicken (forgot to take a photo, the packaging is green in colour). I bought a pack to try, for those days that I need to add a dish when I have extra guest.

I cooked it finally, when PILs came for dinner at the last minute. After heated it as per instructed, it smells good:

But then, the taste is not good. The potato is way too lumpy, and the gravy is just too spicy (like the chilly oil spiciness, not the fragrant curry spicy). Chicken quite tasteless too.

I will never buy this again.