Soup with duck, gourd and gingko nuts

Ginkgo nuts have some good values to the health, so when the ginkgo is available at the supermarkets with good quality, I will buy them to make a stew dish or sweet desserts. Ginkgo is popularly in Chinese dishes that use Cihnese herbs to add curing-illness effects to the dishes. What is even better is that ginkgo is quite cheap.

This time I made a stew dish of duck, ginkgo and long gourd. You also can replace the gourd with winter melon, which also tastes really good. In order to make the soup thinner, clearer and less fat, I removed all the skin and fat from the duck. You may used boned duck or boneless duck depending on your liking.

The secret to this dish is the application of dried tangerine rinds when stewing the soup. These rinds would bring a ver special fragrance and taste to the dish. Dried tangerine rinds can be bought at the supermarkets, however, I didn’t throw aways the rinds after eating the tangerines but sun-dried them for future use.

Ingredients:

- 1 whole small duck (about 1.5kg)

- 500g winter melon or long gourd

- 40 gingko nuts

- 4-5 pieces of dried tangerine peels

- 2 l for normal stewing, 1.5l for stewing with pressure cooker

- Salt, to taste

Cooking:

- Rinse the duck well, cut into big chunks

- Peel the winter melon/gourd, cut into pieces

- Remove the hard shells and the thin skin of the ginkgo nuts. (the prepared or cooked gingko nuts are available at the super markets)

- For slow simmering, combine the duck, water, ginkgo and tangerine peels, and salt altogether. Stew for about one hour  and a half, then add the winter melon/gourd to cook until tender.

- For pressure cooker, check the duck after half an hour, if the duck is tender enough, then add the winter melon/gourd and cook until tender.