Pork Heart Soup with Danggui

Purpose:

To nourish blood,  tonify heart and improve spleen.  This soup can be used to treat heart murmur, which  manifests as the following symptoms: heart murmur, palpitation, insomnia and dreamful sleep, pale complexion, flat feeling in mouth, pale tongue with whitish coating, and weak pulses.  

Material:

Pork heart （猪心）                                        1 (about 300 g)
Danggui （当归）                                            6 g 
Black beans (乌豆）                                      12 g
Dired mushroom (香菇）                               6 pieces (about 12 g)
Ginger （姜）                                                   5 g
Garlic（蒜）                                                      5 g
Green onion (青葱）                                      12 g
Salt                                                                 some
          

Note:

Pork heart, black beans, and dried mushroom are available from Chinese grocery stores.  There are many varieties of danggui, so it is better that you buy the herb from a Chinese herb shop instead of a grocery store if therapeutic effects are important to you.  Pork heart is neutral and sweet, and can improve symptoms of weakness and nourish heart.  Danggui supplements blood, improves blood circulation, and regulates menstruation.  Dried mushrooms are beneficial to stomach and can strengthen spleen.  Black beans nourish kidney, help to drain water, promoting qi circulation to relieve flatulence, thus can also improve blood circulation and detoxify.  These ingredients together have the effects of nourishing blood, tonifying heart and improving spleen.

Procedure:

a.   Cut the pork heart to two halves and remove fatty tissues.  Rinse clean.  Separately rinse clean danggui, black beans, dried mushrooms, and green onion.  Skin and cut ginger into thin slices.  Peel and slice garlic.

b.   Soak black beans in warm water for about 1-2 hours.  Soak dried mushrooms for about 0.5 hour, remove stems, and cut into halves or quarters.  

c.   Add enough water in a pot to cover the two halves of pork heart.  Bring to boil.  Blanch the two halves of pork heart by immersing them into the boiling water for about 3 minutes.  Pour away water and drain as much blood as possible from the heart tissue.  

d.   Add about 6 cups of water and the blanched pork heart to a pot and bring to boil with high heat.  Remove foam, fat and scum.  Add green onion, garlic, ginger, and soaked black beans.  Bring to boil.  Then, reduce heat to simmer for 1 hour.

e.   At the same time of step d, use two cups of water to boil danggui until one cup of water remains.

f.   Decant danggui water into the pork heart soup.  Add mushroom.  Bring to boil, and cook at medium heat for another half hour.  Add salt to taste.  Before serving, retrieve the two halves of pork heart from the soup, cut to slices and then add back to soup.   

        

Comment:

This is a tasty soup with plenty of flavors.  One might imagine that pork heart muscles are somewhat tough since the heart is a strong pump to push blood circulation.  However, following the procedure in this recipe, the result is soft and tasteful.  I guess cooking in a whole chunk, instead of small pieces, does minimize toughing the meat.  Every ingredient in the soup can be eaten.  My personal preference is not to eat the dregs of spices (green onion, garlic, and ginger in this soup); I like their flavors though.  For therapeutic effects, the original recipe suggests to use one pork heart as 2-3 servings, and eat once everyday or every other day.   

Danggui （当归）

Pork heart （猪心）

Dried mushroom （香菇）

Black beans （乌豆）