Foodarrific

These are blazing hot days we’re having right now and both my girls are having the sniffles. With runny noses and intermittent coughs, they really don’t have much of an appetite for food. So I’m brewing this comfort soup which is both nutritious and very palatable.

I brew several chicken carcasses overnight in my slow cooker, or crockpot. By morning, my clear chicken soup is ready to have the chunked carrots and potatoes added.

Up until this point, there’s no seasoning in the soup yet. I’ll only add that after the carrots and potatoes are boiled till soft on medium heat till soft which should take maybe a half hour or slightly more.

The seasoning is simple, just salt to taste and a generous sprinkling of white pepper. Yes, I tend to be a little heavy-handed with the white pepper here because I’ve discovered the spiciness seems to help clear the runny nose somewhat.

I don’t add any oil to this soup at all. Whatever little oil there is comes from the chicken. So this is a really easy, really economical soup to make (no credit report services required) and it’s very soothing.

Filed under: AsianQuick & Easy CookingRecipesSoups by chili queen - 1 Comment →

The weather’s been rainy with cool mornings and heavy downpours in the evenings which would’ve been perfect for checking out the warehouse sale my girl friend’s been dying to get to.

Except she’s down with the flu so there goes our brilliant plan to go shopping for wholesale handbags. So I stayed home and decided to cook tomyam rice noodle soup instead, which incidentally makes a warming meal for cool weather days.

I use tom yam flavored cubes for the soup base. I don’t stick to any particular brand of cubes, sometimes I use Maggi, sometimes Knorr, and you can pretty much use whatever brand you can find. There’s also the tomyam paste that comes in a jar but I didn’t quite like the taste of the ones I tried.

So I tend to stick with the flavored cubes which come in packs of 6. I typically use 3-4 cubes into a saucepan of boiling water to form the soup base depending on how strong a flavor I want.

To sweeten the soup, I add some chicken carcasses (to be removed later), sliced celery and carrots, fresh black mushrooms, fresh enoki mushrooms, fishballs and pork balls. Tomyam goes well with other ingredients like chicken or fish slices, squid or shrimp and whatever vegetables you fancy so go ahead and be creative.

Bring everything to a boil on medium to high heat. It’s important to taste the soup before serving. Depending on which brand and how many cubes I use, the soup may end up too sharp. If that’s the case, I just add a bit of sugar to take the edge off the tomyam. If you’re a chilli freak like me, you can also add fresh chopped chillies to really spice things up !

In another saucepan, I boil up enough water to soak the rice noodles in. When the noodles are softened, drain and scoop into individual bowls. Ladle tomyam soup over the noodles and serve hot. Sometimes I make a big pot of tomyam soup, enough for lunch and dinner and we eat this for a whole day.

Filed under: AsianOne-dish MealsRecipesRice & NoodlesSeafoodSoupsSpicyVegetables by chili queen - 2 Comments →

When the weather is absolutely scorching like it is now, I usually have no appetite to eat. There’s nothing like a bowl of clear soup to go with the meal, I tell ya.

My favorite uncle from New Zealand was here recently and brought me a huge pack of snow (white) fungus from his vacation in China.

I have this really bad habit of stashing stuff away and forgetting all about them. So I thought I’d better use my snow fungus in a soup with fishballs and lettuce before I forget all about them or they expire.

I boil 4 or 5 chicken carcasses in my crock pot the night before. I have two crock pots, one that I bought from a sale and the other was a housewarming gift. For a busy mom like me, I’m thrilled for the time they save me.

So by morning, I have a lovely pot of chicken stock to which I add fishballs and my snow fungus. I have 2 types of fishballs here – one is the regular round one and the other looks like a meringue which the kids love because of its fancy shape.

I add the lettuce leaves at the last minute before serving as I don’t want to overcook them. Add salt and pepper to taste, and I have a deliciously appetizing clear soup to go with rice, or noodles. I like mine with lots of pepper .

If you have cilantro or spring (green) onions handy, go ahead and chuck some in chopped.

Filed under: AsianHealthy EatingKid-friendlyQuick & Easy CookingRecipesSeafoodSoupsVegetables by chili queen - No Comments →

I confess yeen choy, or Chinese spinach, soup was not one of my favorites when I was growing up. You know how kids balk at veggies, I was one of them. Wouldn’t touch this stuff with a ten-foot pole !

This is one of my favorite soups now. I couldn’t resist buying this beautifully fresh bunch of yeen choy the other day. We had this soup at an expensive restaurant recently and I’ve been craving for more ever since.

You just need:

• a large bunch of yeen choy, or Chinese spinach
• a handful of dried anchovies
• a clove of garlic, sliced thinly
• 5-6 cups of water
• salt and pepper to taste

Yeen choy is not expensive and you need to buy a fairly big bunch as the tender leaves tend to shrink when cooked. You also have to be sure and do a thorough job of rinsing out the hidden sand and dirt in the yeen choy.

First thing, you need to chop the woody stems off the top of your bunch of spinach, leaving the tender leaves and stems. Then just hold the bunch lengthwise and twist to break the long stems into two.

My grandmother taught me that vegetables retain their sweetness and taste better when broken by hand than if you chop them up with a knife. I don’t have any scientific evidence to prove this but in my books, my grandmother is da best darned cook so I follow her advice .

Heat up your saucepan with a drizzle of cooking oil. Saute the garlic slices for 1-2 minutes to flavor the oil. Then add the anchovies and saute for another few minutes.

Add 5 cups of water, cover the pan and bring to a boil on medium heat. Next turn the heat to high, add in the Chinese spinach and boil for a few minutes.

You can add a few slices of century egg at this point. But personally I find they don’t add much flavor to the soup so I leave them out altogether.

Be careful not to overboil the soup as you don’t want your beautiful spinach to turn yellow. Season to taste. I remove the anchovies before serving. They’re completely tasteless after you’ve boiled the calcium goodness out of them (bleh!) so I just chuck them.

Restaurants tend to leave the anchovies and century egg in to make the soup appear less plain.

My kids tell me this soup looks like a bunch of grass floating in muddy water and it’s something a cow might want to drink, but certainly not them!!!

Looks aside, Chinese spinach is a rich source of protein, mineral and Vitamin C so this is very healthy soup we’re talking about. The soup is pure protein, calcium and mineral sweetness with very little fat.

Filed under: AsianQuick & Easy CookingSoupsVegetables by chili queen - 3 Comments →