Choy Geok (Mustard leaves left over soup) - featured in Group Recipes

According to my Mum, there is a story about this dish in Chinese legend. It seems that Emperor Qianlong disguised himself as a commoner and was on a mission to see how his citizens lived especially the poor farmers. Then, he came across this young chicken farmer who had a sick old mother. He was impressed with the young farmer for being hardworking and at the same time took good care of his sick mother. He became good friends with him and through him he got to know the hardships faced by his poor citizens. The young and innocent farmer, not knowing that his new friend was Emperor Qianlong had invited him to his home for dinner. When he could not find any decent ingredients to cook for his guest, he regretted the invitation, but it was too late to back out. What he had were just some left overs. So what he did was gather some mustard leaves from his neighbors mustard farm, and came home and threw everything inside the big clay pot with the left overs, along with some dried chilly, assam, and water. He cooked it all slowly. He served the dish to his new acquaintance worrying that he would not like the taste, but to his surprise, his new friend enjoyed the dish so much and wanted to know it's name. As he was too embarrassed to tell the truth, that the dish was made out of left overs, he invented a sophiscated name – “Yat Pun Woh” which literally means, the No.1 tasty dish! So when Emperor Qianlong returned to his kingdom and ordered his chefs to make the dish called “Yat Pun Woh”, none of them had a clue what the Emperor was talking about! I guess Emperor Qianlong had to return to the poor farmer’s home to have this dish, or he sent someone to ask about the recipe. Whether or not this legend is true, it is not important, but I have to say, this is one of my “DIE FOR” dishes! I can eat this dish continuously for a week and still want more!  Chinese cuisine,  just like everyday life, is full of legends like this.  

Ingredients:

4.5 kg of mustard leaves
water, enough to cover all ingredients

(A)

2 roast pork trotter

25 gm assam (adjust according to your own taste)

20 gm dried chilly (adjust according to your own taste)

2 cubes bullion chicken stock

3 tbs lard (optional)

Method:

Wash mustard leaves and cut them in big pieces. Separate the stalk from the leaves. Add mustard stalk and (A) in a big pot and enough water to cover all the ingredients. Bring to a boil. Let it boil for 30 mnst before you add the mustard leaves and let it boil for 15 mins and turn down heat to simmer for 1- 2 hours until vegetables are soft and you can smell the aroma of the dish. This dish tastes better the next day.

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