Winter melon, also known as Ash Gourd and Winter Gourd is known to be a neutral and slightly ‘cooling’ food in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It is often consumed to bring down heat in a person’s body. This Winter Melon with Barley Soup helps to eliminate excess fluids, clears internal heat and weight loss.
Winter melon goes well with most meats such as pork, chicken, duck and also seafood like prawns, fish and crab meat. The soup needs to be flavorful in order for the winter melon to absorb the flavors as it is bland on its own.
Chicken stock can be used as the soup base or you can sweeten the soup by adding ingredients such as dried cuttlefish, dried oysters, dried honey dates or dried scallops. They are commonly available at local Chinese dried goods stalls and Chinese medical halls.
Although it is called winter melon, it needs very warm weather to grow. The reason for its name is because it can be stored for as long as 12 months – even throughout winter. However, once cut, it will be like a ‘normal’ vegetable and will not last as long.
Winter melon can be cooked in many ways and for this recipe, I added barley to boost its diuretic and cooling effect. People who are weak with loose stools should eat winter melon in moderation.
This is the barley I used for the soup. Note that they are different from the smaller barley variety. Called Job’s Tears, they are also known as coix seeds. It is a common ingredient and available in any Chinese medical shops or the Asian dried goods section of your local supermarket. Although they are commonly marketed as Chinese pearl barley, they are not related to the barley family.
Job’s tears is a popular medicinal herb to help remove excessive dampness in the body. They are cooling in nature and clears heat associated with sores with pus, as well as lung and intestinal abscesses. As the lung is related to the skin, eating Job’s tears can make skin smooth and white. (source: mao.co)
Interestingly, they can be strung up and made into personal adornment in the form of a necklace. I don’t think I would mind wearing one of those! 🙂
This winter melon with barley soup is light and goes well with heavy and oily foods. I love having soup after a heavy meal to ‘wash’ everything down.
Related recipe: Winter Melon Soup with Lean Pork and Straw Mushrooms
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- 1 winter melon disc (about 600g) - peel skin and cut into chunks
- 300 g pork ribs
- 60 g barley (about ¼ cup) - washed
- 20 g dried small shrimp - washed and soaked for 5 minutes
- 1 carrot - peel skin and cut into bite-sized chunks
- 2 dried honey dates
- 5 dried oysters - washed
- 5 dried scallops - soaked in hot water till softened
- 6 cups water (or enough to cover the ingredients)
- Salt to taste
- Blanch pork ribs in a small saucepan of boiling water to remove impurities for about 5 minutes. Pour away the water and rinse the meat. Set aside.
- Combine all the ingredients except winter melon into a soup pot (I used a clay pot) and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to low and simmer for around 1.5 hours. Add the winter melon only in the last 30 minutes of cooking.
- Season with salt to taste and serve.
OMG, it reminds me of my childhood! My nanny used to make this for me, it tasted very mild and refreshing, the sweetness from the melon and carrot were just perfect! Even after so many years, i still can remember this. But I never make it by myself, and recently I’m really craving some Chinese soup, so its gonna be my tonight dinner!
Thanks for sharing the recipe, hope you upload more soup recipe!
Shailie
Hi, Yvonne
This soup looks yummy …. will it taste as good if I don’t add barley?
Hi Helen,
It will still taste good but adding barley is believed to promote diuresis, benefit the gall bladder and rid the body of toxins. You can also check out this winter melon soup with lean pork and straw mushrooms too.
If you try these recipes, I would love to hear from you! 🙂
ok, I will try one of these Sundays and let you know. So glad that I happened to bump into this souper diaries.. haha. My colleague gave me some pears last Friday and I didn’t know what to do with them, so tried searching for recipes for pear soup and found your recipes. Thank you for sharing 🙂
You’re welcome. Thanks for your comments 🙂
My mother always use to make a winter melon soup for our 5 siblings. I like winter melon soup! It’s very soft and easy to eat. The fact that it absorb the flavor of the soup as you mentioned making this vegetable taste better than any other. Thank you very much for sharing a great content here!
Yvonne, you made me crave for soup! This looks so refreshing and light. The first time I’ve tried winter melon was in the form of milk tea, and I really love it! I’m sure this tastes great and would love to give it a shot. Since I don’t eat meat, do you think the recipe will still be good if I remove the pork ribs?
Hi Raquel,
Welcome to Souper Diaries. I’ve not tried winter melon milk tea yet but I’m pretty sure it will taste great as I love winter melon. If you’re not using the pork ribs, the soup will not be as sweet so I would suggest using chicken/vegetable stock to replace the water. Hope that helps.
Hey Yvonne,
I love barley and I love winter melon! This is a very cleansing treat I most definitely need to try. Would it taste much nicer if I add in taro balls and basil? I saw that in the Asian Food Channel but I missed the recipe though, would be really cool I can learn how to use those ingredients.
Hi Riaz,
Taro balls are usually used in sweet desserts. I’ve not seen them used in winter melon soup before. As for basil, they are not commonly paired with winter melon either but you can experiment with them. If you do use them with winter melon, do let me know how it turns out ok 🙂