Mo Ku Gai T'ong (Spring Chicken Soup with Mushrooms)

Ingredients

• 2.5 pounds fresh young chicken
• 0.25 pound lean pork
• 0.25 pound dried mushrooms
• 12 whole lotus seeds
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 teaspoonful salt
• 1 tablespoonful syou
• 1 whole onion
• 3 pints cold water

Instructions

1. Clean a fresh young chicken of about two and one half pounds and cut off all the flesh.
2. Put the bones, with liver and gizzard, into three pints of cold water and boil for two hours, adding water if it boils away.
3. While the stock is boiling, cut the chicken meat into small pieces.
4. Cut one quarter pound of lean pork very fine.
5. Wash and soak one quarter pound of dried mushrooms in lukewarm water, then pull off all the stalks.
6. Peel and cut a dozen lotus seeds or water chestnuts.
7. Chop three stalks of celery very fine, and also one onion.
8. Pour off the liquor from the bones and strain it.
9. Cut up the liver and gizzard fine and return to the stock.
10. Add all the prepared ingredients, one teaspoonful of salt, and one tablespoonful of syou to the stock.
11. Boil all together for one hour.