Although I could imagine that it would happen, I couldn’t foresee in what way my cooking would change when migrating to California. Living in a city with two huge Chinese supermarkets, a smaller freezer and a new Japanese cookbook inspired me to this dish, which I probably wouldn’t have come up with, when I was still living in The Netherlands.

Meet my new recipe: Chinese style dumpling duck soup with bok choy!

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In our first weeks in California, we lived in a tiny apartment near a Chinese mall. Regularly I walked up there for some shopping and fell in love with dumplings. Every time I eat them, I’m feeling again like I felt during my first weeks. Wondering about everything new. The banking system (don’t get me started!). The relatively mild winter. How only a few people ride a bike. Ever since I have a bag of dumplings in my freezer. That’s the start of this recipe.

Secondly, there wasn’t enough space in my very small freezer for a duck carcass, after I had cut of the breasts and legs to eat separately. So I immediately (!) roasted the carcass with 2 carrots, 1 leek, 1 onion and 2 stalks of celery for half an hour in my oven at 200 C | 400 F degrees – all cut into smaller pieces, carcass included. After this browning I put it all in a pot with 3 liters (3/4 quart) of water, 2 bay leaves, some peppercorns, fennel seeds and juniper berries and let it simmer. At least, I thought. When coming back to my kitchen I noticed I had committed a culinary crime: my stock was cooking instead of simmering. It caused my stock not to become the clear, bright broth I was aiming for.
Being too lazy for going through the clarifying hassle, I decided not to give a d@mn and use half of my cloudy broth for the soup that had just started to form in my head – inspired by the Japanese hot pot I made 2 weeks ago. But this time I made it a Chinese style soup by using other ingredients and condiments.

So, please enjoy my new recipe: Chinese style dumpling duck soup with bok choy!

Chinese style dumpling duck soup with bok choy

Californian ‘winters’ don’t make me long for that heavy dishes as I was used to eat this time of year. A strong flavored soup filled with dumplings and looooots of veggies is a good substitute. In this Chinese style dumpling soup I use parsnip, carrots and (baby) bok choy.

You need (for 2):
700 ml | 3 cups of strong duck stock (or use vegetable/chicken stock)
1 star anise
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
1 dried whole | 4-5 slices shitake
1 hot pepper (or any kind of hot spices/sauces)
1/4 onion
1 stalk of celery
1 parsnip (approx. 200 gr)
1 big carrot (approx. 200 gr)
1 bunch of baby bok choy (approx. 200 gr)
12 dumplings – any kind is fine
For flavoring:
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons of Chinese soy sauce
salt and pepper
2 scallions (spring onions)
left over duck meat (of use some leftover cooked chicken meat)

You do:
Flavor the stock. Bring the stock to a simmer with the star anise, ginger, shitake and hot pepper.
If you don’t have a hot pepper, wait with adding spiciness, just wait for that until the end.

Clean and cut the veggies. Peel and cut the onion in not too small chunks. Celery in small arches, parsnip and carrot in halved thin rings (approx. 1/4 cm | 1/8 inch). Bok choy in 1/2 cm | 1/4 inch slices.

Add veggies. In order of the ingredients list: onion and celery first. After 2 minutes the parsnip and carrot pieces. Then the dumplings. And bok choy last. Bring stock back to a boil after adding each ingredient.

Flavor the soup with the rice vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Garnish with little rings of scallions. Add duck meat to taste.

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