Lu Guimeng, a litterateur during Tang Dynasty, was a hermit living in a place called Fuli in today’s LuZhi town-ship, styling himself Mr Fuli. He was keen on raising ducks for pleasure. Up to now, there still remains his Duck Fighting Pool. It was said that he often treat his guests with dishes made of ducks of which Fuli’s Duck Soup was said to be the very dish with which he had treated his friend Pi Rixiu.
Firstly, you need to remove the internal organs of a duck (weighing about 1.5 kg) as well as its part for excretion under the tail. Then you wash the duck’s liver and put it into the clean water together with ham, pork tendon until the water boils. Now it’s time to scoop them out and put them as well as the onion knots, sliced gingers in the pot full of the soup previously for stewing the duck, and cook them with high heat until the froth disappears, then with low heat until the duck meat becomes tender. After that, you take the duck out of the soup, dismantle its bones and chop the meat into several rectangular chunks. Meanwhile, you have to put the sliced ham and duck’s liver, several inch-long pork tendon chunks, steamed and dried scallops, dried shrimps, sliced Chinese yams and tender bamboo shoots, dried black mushroom and fish balls together in the pot and steam them. Once it is served, you must immediately scatter the diced beanstalk on it.
This duck soup, greatly delighting to our eyes, is quite tasty with all its original flavor preserved.
Source: Suzhou Municipal People's Government