Spring has come to China. Never mind that snow on the ground - you heard the fireworks. The season is a time of transformation; go out and enjoy nature returning to life. Marvel at the office plaza barrier hedges turning from prickly brown to security-uniform green. Gaze wistfully at the park grass you're not allowed to walk on, as it battles for survival against the gushing hose that's been left on it by state-employed horticulturalists.

But don't go out there unprepared. Chinese medicine holds that all these changing winds and variable temperatures can have a devastating effect on your constitution. We're not talking about spring sniffles here, folks, we're talking about ghost fire. In your lungs. Don't ask. It's very bad. Instead, cook up a pot of super tasty duck soup.

Lu sun lao ya tang, asparagus and duck soup, will do wonders in preventing your pollution-compromised health from taking a turn for the fiery. In China, you're not just vulnerable to catching a cold; you can also catch fire, a dreaded condition known as shanghuo. You've turned to the hot side when your nose burns, and your body is producing enough phlegm to take on a taxi-line full of idle cabbies.

Both asparagus and duck belong to the comparatively under-eaten cold system of foods. Asparagus is fairly expensive in the Middle Kingdom, but duck can frequently replace the ubiquitous chicken, if you've any respect at all for keeping heat balance. Besides, duck is rich in protein, calcium, iron, phosphorous and B vitamins, the ones that help you remember why you just walked into a room.

Those of you astute enough to notice that the pinyin name indicates "old duck" take a seated bow. We don't mean Daffy old, but at least a year old. Anything younger can easily send you duck-walking out of a meeting and to the nearest squatter.

Ingredients

(for two)

Ten pieces of asparagus

Half a grown duck

Chinese onion (15 cm piece)

Ginger (a thumb-size piece)

Salt (to taste)

Preparation

 1. Wash the asparagus and chop into quarters. Chop the ginger into four or five bits, and the green onion into five or so roughly equal pieces.

 2. If attached, the organs in the duck should go in the bin (or dog's bowl). Chop the duck into pieces you can just get your index finger and thumb around. Don't go Thanksgiving carving; let the pieces of bone come away with and cling to the chopped duck. Bones in the soup add flavor and nutrition.

 3. Put the duck in boiling water for one or two minutes, just to get rid of the unsavory stuff. Remove and put to the side.

  4. Boil one and a half liters of new water in a large pot (clay, preferably). Put in the duck pieces, the ginger and onion. Boil on a high flame for twenty minutes.

 5. Lower the flame and simmer the pot for an hour and a half.

 6. Throw in the asparagus, then salt to taste, and simmer for an additional fifteen to twenty minutes.

 7. Go on Twitter or Facebook and "jokingly" call attention to your Chinese cooking skills.