Julie is back from Taiwan and Vanessa immediately catch hold of her to demonstrate in the South Arm Community Kitchen. Julie demonstrated two Chinese dishes. The first one is Pork Neck Bone and Japanese Pumpkin Soup. In this time of the year, pumpkin and winter squashes are abundant in the farmer’s market.
Pumpkins are orange because they contain massive amounts of beta-carotene which turns into vitamin A in our body. Vitamin A is essential for good eye sight.

Ingredients
- 3 lbs pork neck bone
- 10 cups of water
- 1 small Japanese pumpkin (Kabocha), cut into chunk
- 1 inch knob of ginger, slice
- salt and white pepper to taste

Click on the link below for the instructions.
Instructions
Due to the time constraint, Julie prepared the pork bone soup the night before. To make the broth, Julie simmered the pork neck bone with the ginger slices for 2 hours using a pressure cooker. You can see that the broth is milky white due to the long simmering. |
After simmering for 2 hours, add the pumpkins and continue to simmer on low heat for another hour or until the pumpkins are softened. |
The soup will turn yellowish when ready. Season with salt and white pepper to your preference. A hot bowl of soup is always great for a cold fall or winter day. You may substitute the pork neck bone with chicken which need less time to cook, probably cut short to one hour and you may add the pumpkin at the same time as the chicken. |
Cool! I just made a pumpkin soup too. I’ll post the recipe in a few weeks.
You could be a little more explicit about the procedure for pressure cooking the pork neck bones. Normally I cook pork neck in a PC for 30 minutes; 2 hours would be more like the time required for cooking pork neck without a pressure cooker.
Mark