Recipe : Hippo Soup

This delicious and healthy soup is both medicinal and cleansing. One of my personal favorites, it is sweet and naturally fragrant, requires no added salt or seasoning. The Hippocrates Soup is also used as soup stock for my other soups and as a base for other recipes. All ingredients are organic where possible. Always get organic potato and tomato for this soup as the pesticide levels for these produce tend to be much higher in non-organic ones.

The soup is always served every lunch and dinner as a starter soup for Gerson Therapy (GT) patients. Its a pre-requisite menu for GT patients. While much of GT is directed to liver cleansing, this special soup is designed to help cleanse the kidney and nourish the body. No salt or other condiments should be added for obvious reasons.

The main medicinal ingredients are leeks, celeriac (celery root), parsley root. Potatos are added for carbohydrates and tomatos, garlic onions are added for taste. Here in Singapore, parsley root is rare and hardly available in the shops so I omit it. You can find celeriac (seasonal) in gourmet supermarkets like Tanglin Supermarket, Jasons, Culina. If celeriac is unavailable, replace with celery stalks.

Recipe : Hippocrates Special Soup
Makes four portion for two days

Ingredients (use organic produce where possible)
400g medium celeriac
250g medium onions
250g celery stalk about 3-4 medium stalk
500g roma tomatos
500g potato
400g leeks
300g parsley root (if available)
3-4 cloves of garlic (as desired)
1 stalk parsley herb (condiment)
filtered water

Method
1. Wash all the vegetables thoroughly, unpeeled, cut in small cubes.
2. Add just enough filtered water to cover the cut vegetables in non-aluminum based pot.
3. Cook all the ingredients under low heat 60-80 degrees Celsius for 1.5-2hours in firmly covered pot.
4. Remove tender and soft vegetables from heat, run through food mill/blender. Remove fibers or peels.
5. Blend still warm ingredients thoroughly till soup is thicky and creamy. Only blend the soup while its warm, otherwise the soup will form a sticky and starchy texture when cooled.
6. Allow soup to cool before storing in refrigerator
7. Make enough for about two days only.

Notes :
- You can vary the taste by adding semi-dried tomatos or roasted garlic to the soup.
- Portions of Leeks, celeriac, celery stalks, parsley root should remain as prescribed.
- The unblended version can be used as Vegetable Stock for other recipes.
- The soup should be cooked at low and slow heat to preserve its valuable nutrients and keep it easily digestible. In fast and high heat cooking, the cells burst and the minerals go out of their colloidal composition, it becomes more difficult to be absorbed.
- The soup pot must be non-aluminum and must have a closely tight heavy pot lid to prevent steam to escape.