Recipe for Recovery

"Mildly sweet and nutty flavour."

That's the taste Mum has been accustomed to over the past one and a half months every single day. The recipe of the soup she has been drinking was discovered by an aunt who read in the papers about how a Taiwanese woman recovered from brain cancer after seeking alternative medicine from Japan. The woman's husband left her upon realising she has the condition. She prevailed and persevered in spite of the odds against her. She won. And I intend to use that success story of hers as an inspiration for me, for us, towards mum's recovery.

The ingredients can easily be sourced from local supermarkets. Burdock root, or gobō in Japanese [牛蒡, ごぼう], for instance, is more commonly used as a vegetable in Japan, Korea, Italy and Portugal. This crisp root has a sweet and mildly pungent taste, and the Japanese love to use it as an appetiser. That explains what Mum described. First chopped into half, from the original size it's packaged, it is soaked in a tub of water for half an hour to remove excess dirt. Then scrub it with a sponge to ensure that its skin is completely clean. The root is then further cut into between three to four inches.

The Chinese radish, or more lovingly called lobak by locals in Malaysia is a popular ingredient in Chinese soups. It's also called daikon [大根, だいこん] by the Japanese; literally mean large root, is another key ingredient in the soup Mum has to drink. Like the burdock root, it's cut into the same size together with one carrot and boiled with Shiitake mushrooms for two hours before serving. Preferably, pick the Chinese radish which still comes with its leaves and shoots, which are used in the soup as well.