Homemade soup made perfect

Homemade soup is at its pinnacle when there is a wide collection of diverse but compatible ingredients to serve on a rich stock. In fact, most of the time, a great soup is made of leftover ingredients, carefully combined in appropriate proportions. Here is a soup that plays with the combination of pork shoulder, seafood, tofu, cabbages, noodle and a few spices. It yields incredibly yummy result. This soup tastes so good that my husband suggests that I jot down my own recipe!


Recipe: Homemade soup (for 2)


Ingredients:
Main ingredients

- 2 cups of thick stock of pork shoulder bone, skimmed of fat

- 1/2 pack of soft tofu, cut to 1/2" thick pieces
- 5 large leaves of kappa cabbage, chopped to 2" big pieces
Ingredients for enriching flavor, aroma and texture
- 1/2 small purple onion, chopped to 1" pieces
- 1 large leaf of purple cabbage, cut to 1/4" slices
- 1-2 oz polska sausage, cut to 1/8" slices
- 3-4 fish balls
- 2-3 oz cooked shoulder cut pork, cut to 1/2" pieces (meat from the stock)
- 1 teaspoon (tp) small dried shrimps
- 2 tablespoon (TB) dried (not cooked) small anchovies
- 2 TB rice noodle, use the broken pieces
- 8 hua jiao pepper corns
- 2 TB Sriracha hot chili sauce
- 1 TB sesame oil


Procedure:
1. Use a 3-quart pot with lid. Boil purple onion, purple cabbage, polska sausage, fish balls, cooked pork, dried shrimps, anchovies and rice noodle in 2 cup of stock. Let it boil on med-high heat for 10-15 minutes.
2. Add the white parts of the kappa cabbage into pot and cover lid. Let cook for 5-10 minutes. The cabbage will cook partly in the liquid and partly in the steam. Stir occasionally to make sure every pieces of cabbage has a chance to be soaked in the hot liquid. When the kappa cabbage softens, it gives out water. So no additional water is needed to make the soup. After all the white parts of the kappa cabbage is soft, add Sriracha hot chili sauce and the green parts and cover for 5 minutes. Stir occasional to let all the leaves cook. When all the kappa leaves are cooked, transfer all solid ingredients out of the pot to a serving bowl. 
3. Use the remaining liquid to cook the tofu with hua jiao pepper corn for 5 minutes. Then transfer everything from the pot to the serving bowl. Sprinkle sesame oil on top and serve.