I confess yeen choy, or Chinese spinach, soup was not one of my favorites when I was growing up. You know how kids balk at veggies, I was one of them. Wouldn’t touch this stuff with a ten-foot pole !

This is one of my favorite soups now. I couldn’t resist buying this beautifully fresh bunch of yeen choy the other day. We had this soup at an expensive restaurant recently and I’ve been craving for more ever since.

You just need:

• a large bunch of yeen choy, or Chinese spinach
• a handful of dried anchovies
• a clove of garlic, sliced thinly
• 5-6 cups of water
• salt and pepper to taste

Yeen choy is not expensive and you need to buy a fairly big bunch as the tender leaves tend to shrink when cooked. You also have to be sure and do a thorough job of rinsing out the hidden sand and dirt in the yeen choy.

First thing, you need to chop the woody stems off the top of your bunch of spinach, leaving the tender leaves and stems. Then just hold the bunch lengthwise and twist to break the long stems into two.

My grandmother taught me that vegetables retain their sweetness and taste better when broken by hand than if you chop them up with a knife. I don’t have any scientific evidence to prove this but in my books, my grandmother is da best darned cook so I follow her advice .

Heat up your saucepan with a drizzle of cooking oil. Saute the garlic slices for 1-2 minutes to flavor the oil. Then add the anchovies and saute for another few minutes.

Add 5 cups of water, cover the pan and bring to a boil on medium heat. Next turn the heat to high, add in the Chinese spinach and boil for a few minutes.

You can add a few slices of century egg at this point. But personally I find they don’t add much flavor to the soup so I leave them out altogether.

Be careful not to overboil the soup as you don’t want your beautiful spinach to turn yellow. Season to taste. I remove the anchovies before serving. They’re completely tasteless after you’ve boiled the calcium goodness out of them (bleh!) so I just chuck them.

Restaurants tend to leave the anchovies and century egg in to make the soup appear less plain.

My kids tell me this soup looks like a bunch of grass floating in muddy water and it’s something a cow might want to drink, but certainly not them!!!

Looks aside, Chinese spinach is a rich source of protein, mineral and Vitamin C so this is very healthy soup we’re talking about. The soup is pure protein, calcium and mineral sweetness with very little fat.

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