Tian zhi and american ginseng soup田七花期參湯

 

 Tian zhi is a Chinese herb which is very good for blood circulation, reduce swelling and pain efficacy.  American ginseng is very good to boost the immune system and as a general tonic and stimulant.

 

Today I am sharing this simple and nourishing soup for our whole family.

 

The simple ingredients are,

 

Tian zhi 3 grams,

American ginseng 10 grams,

Lean meat 550 grams,

goji berry 10grams,

2 inche old ginger.

10 bowls of water.

 Wash all the herbs and set aside,   Par-boil the meat.
Boil the water in a soup pot.  Add in all the ingredients, let boil.  Slow down the fire to low and simmer for 1 hour.  Add salt to taste and serve hot.

Its very nourishing and healthy soup.

Tom yam seafood

Tom Yam is a Thai traditional soup.  It is very delicious and healthy soup though it may taste sour and pungent .  The pungent taste can make a person sweat till whole body wet (my husband) always have this experience and he likes this soup very much.

As I have some prawns and 1/2 of fish head in the freezer, I would prepare tom yam seafood.  I have to gather my ingredients as below,

300 g prawns(with head and shell intact),
300 g fish head( cut into bite pieces),
3 to 4 stalk of lemon grass,
3 shallots,
2 medium tomato,
2 tbs of tom yam paste,
3 to 4 tbs of lime juice,
4 to 5 small chili,
4 to 5 kaffir lime leaves,
some coriander,
 6 cups of water,
salt to taste.

 I use this tom yam paste from Thailand.

I defrost the prawns and the fish head and set aside.  Boil the water in the deep sauce pot. 
At the mean time, cut the lemon grass into about 5 inches long, use back of knife to lightly smash on the lemon grass.  Cut the tomatoes into wedges. Peel the onions and  give a light smash. Cut the coriander into about 1 inch length.  Cut the kaffir lime leaves into small slices.

When the water is boiled, put in the tom yam paste, stir well.  Add in onions, lemon grass and tomato wedges.  Let boil then lower the fire to low and simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes.

 Add in the fish head and let cook for 2 minutes.  Add in the prawns and cook for another 3 minutes or until the fish and the prawns are cooked.  Add salt and sugar to taste.  Add in the small chili, kaffir lemon leaves and coriander.  Lastly add in lime juice.

Serve hot with rice.  Mmmmm delicious and tasty tom yum soup is ready.  I would boil some rice noodle to go with the soup when there is some left over tom yam for the next morning breakfast.

Curry Sweet Potato Soup

Yesterday while looking for some health remedies at www.health.com, I came across this interesting soup, curry sweet potato soup!  This is the first time I see a soup with curry powder. I would like to share with you guys out there.  I modified the original recipe by reducing the ingredients to half of it because the original serve for 5.

The ingredients are,

2 tbs. cooking oil,
1/2 cup chopped shallots,
3 cups (1") cubed peel chopped sweet potato,
1 1/2 cup (1") cubed peel chopped carrot,
1 tbs. grated ginger,
2 tsp. curry powder,
3 cups refused salt chicken stock( I use only water),
Salt to taste.

Heat the oil in  a sauce pan, fry shallots and ginger until fragrant, add in sweet potato, carrot and curry powder, stir and mix well.

Pour in the water, let boil and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until the carrot and sweet potato are soft.  Add in salt to taste.

Pour into blender and blend till fine.

The creamy sweet potato soup is ready to be served.

I like the sweetness of the sweet potato and the fragrant smell of the curry powder.  I would this easy and delicious soup to my friends.

Lotus root with dried cuttle fish soup

My eldest son is back from Myanmar for a short break, Christmas holiday.  He missed lotus root with dried cuttlefish soup.  As mother, I will cook whatever he missed, children who are away from home will always missed home cooked food.

I gathered all the ingredients,

800 g lotus root(from China),
300 g of chicken or pork,(par -boiled),
100 g peanuts,
8 red dates,
3 medium dried cuttlefish,
1.5 ml water,
salt to taste.

Soak the cuttlefish and red dates. In a soup pot bring the water to boil.  Wash and use a knife to scrape off the thin layer of skin of the lotus roots.

 

 

Cut the lotus into small pieces.  Wash and clean the red dates and cuttlefish.

Put all the ingredients in to the boiling water except the salt.  Turn the fire to low and simmer for 2 hours. I like the aromatic smell of the boiling cuttlefish, smell so good.
Add salt to taste.  Serve hot with rice.  My son had 2 big bowls of the soup. He really enjoyed it.

Fish Soup

 have been cooking  many types of soup but never try cooking fish soup.  Today the fish monger recommended me to buy some sea eels but  I refuse because the fish has too much side bones and I do not know how to prepare and handle this type of fish.  She was so very persuasive and encouraging.  finally she cut 3 slices of about 6 inch long of the eels.  She gave me a simple fish soup recipe that I will never regret and sure will share with friends and relatives.  I shared with my relatives, but none of them had tried before.  Here I would also like to share out the recipe as well.

The ingredients are,

800 grams of eels,
 4 medium tomatoes,(cut into quarters)
1 piece 2 inches old ginger, (cut into slices)
1 medium size cha choy, (soak and cut into thin slices)
1.5 lt.  water.
chopped spring onions(garnishing)

Bring the water to boil in a soup pot.  Meanwhile wash and clean the fish.  Pour some hot water over the fish to get rid off some of the fishy smell. Prepare the tomatoes and the cha choy.

Put in all the ingredients when the water is boiled. Simmer for about 1 to 1 1/2 hour in low fire.  My fish is ready.  Serve hot and garnish with spring onions.

I can taste the sweetness from the fish, a little sourness mix with light  sweetness from the tomatoes and a little saltines with very little taste of chili from the cha choy, the soup is clear and taste good!  I like it very much.  Before cooking this soup , in my mind I was thinking that the soup may be taste fishy that I will not be able to drink it.  However, it turns out to be so good, I love this soup and will  cook this soup  more often as long as I can get the eels from the market.  This soup is very nutritious too.

Simple Pumpkin Soup

As I promised yesterday that I will share a simple yet delicious pumpkin soup.  Pumpkin was very cheap last week, it cost only .99c per kilogram as compare a few months ago, the price went as high as 4.99 per kilogram.  I was greedy, I manage to choose 2 medium sized pumpkins from Tesco  hypermarket.  I make some pumpkin jam and some pumpkin steam pau as well.  Now I am going to share my way of preparing simple Pumpkin soup.  This recipe serve 3 to 4 persons.

The simple ingredients are,

600 grams of pumpkin,
1 onion,
1 tsp. salt,
1 tsp. pepper,
3 cups of water,
1/2 cup of coconut milk/milk.
sour cream(optional)

Wash , peel and cut the pumpkin into small pieces, cut the onion into half.

Put pumpkin, onion, salt and pepper and 1 cup of water in a sauce pan, cover and cook for 10 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft.  Pour into blender and blend until all become fine.

Pour the blended pumpkin back into the sauce pan, add the balance water.  Use slow fire to cook until boil, stirring all the time until it boil.  Add in the milk and have a quick stir and boil.  Serve hot with sour cream .  I prefer it to remain as the pure natural pumpkin taste, I  do not add cream.

 

I have the pumpkin soup go with my whole meal roll for dinner.

Old Cucumber with pork ribs soup

This is a very cooling and nourishing soup that my mom used to prepare for the whole family.


the ingredients are,

1 -1 kg old cucumber,
300g pork ribs,
7 red dates,
1- 3 dried sotong,
6 small dried mushrooms(optional),

 

wash the pork rips and par-boil

 

 

 

 

 wash the old cucumber and scrape the skin off, cut into half, discard the seeds and cut into smaller pieces.

soak the dried sotong, red dated and dried mushrooms for about 20 minutes.  wash and set aside.

Boil 1 litre of water in a pot.  Put in all the ingredients .  Slow down the fire when all the ingredients in the pot is boiled.  simmer for about 1 to 11/2 hour.  I usually  will pour into slow cooker after boiling in a soup pot and let slow cook for 4 hours.  Slow cook can slowly simmer out fragrant and the flavour of all the ingredients.  I normally do not add any salt into to soup, we prefer the original taste of the soup.  Garnish with chopped spring onions or coriander.  Serve hot.

 

 

Hakka Lei Cha

My Shelina multi function hi-fiber food processor not working anymore after had been working hard for me for the last 3 years.  When I sent for repair , it will cost me too high to do it.  I gave it up.

My husband and me used to have fruit juice everyday and so got use to my Shelina blender, felt very uneasy without any blender or food processor at home.  We went to the nearest hipper market and bought a simple Tefel 400 watts blender, however it does not work well for me, very disappointed.

A few days later met a new friend Elian, she mentioned about her hi power blender and she love to use it everyday.  I was very interested so Elian made an appointment and drove me to another new friend, (yoke yin) house to see some demonstrations.  Though Elian has bought the blender for more then half a year, she have not seen any demonstrations.

The first thing Yoke Yin prepared was Hakka Lei Cha, by using the blender to blend the mix herbs.  the end result was that the herbs were very fine, many of my friends and me too love this soup!   Wah! Elian and me were excited , tasted so good.

Yoke Yin  continued to blend mix fruit juice, mango smoothie and a few other food that make from another product (seiketsu healthy love iii).

After spending 2 hours and see all the demonstration and tasted all the food, finally I order 2 of the products. Cosmos soy love ii ( the blender/food processor) and Seiketsu healthy love iii)

.

By using the blender, the first thing I wanted to prepare is
Hakka Lei Cha.

The ingredients for Lei Cha tea paste are,
(Serve 4 to 5 persons)

5 pips of garlic,
400 grams basil,
100 grams mint leaves,
 50 grams coriander,
100 grams roasted peanuts,
100 grams roasted sesame
1 small packet of Chinese tea leaves,
1 bowl of water.

I manage to harvest enough basil and mint leaves from my back yard garden.

Wash and rinse all the vegetables well, let dry.  Smash the garlics.  In a wok, heat up 2 tablespoon of oil and lightly fry the garlics, add in all the vegetables and have a quick stir.

Put the Chinese tea leaves in the blender , blend for a few seconds, then add in the fried vegetables, peanuts, sesame and water.  With this new blender, I used auto, that is 1 minute, and the vegetable paste is ready.

Meanwhile boil 5 bowls of water, pour in the paste when the water is boiled.  Stirring until the paste mix well into the water, add salt and some mushroom granule to taste.  The Hakka Lei Cha is ready to be serve.

I have prepared some side dishes and rice to go together with Lei cha.

Cut some celery, carrot, French beans, red and green pepper, sawi, lightly fry with some oil, garlic and salt.  I missed out preserved radish, with this to go with the rice and the soup will enhance the whole Hakka Lei cha.

My first self home made Hakka Lei Cha.  I invited my neighbours to share my success of this soup.  My son love the soup too, the first time he tasted Lei Cha.

Masak Titeh

My mother and my eldest sister came to my house for a few days.  My mother brought along some wild pepper leaves (daun kaduk) from her back yard and wanted to cook her favourite soup, masak titeh.  We have been eating this for many years but never cook this before.  This time I am going to note down the ingredients and ways of preparing it.  I went to the wet market to get all the necessary ingredients this morning.

the ingredients

300 g wild pepper leaves
50 g red chili
few chili padi(optional)
50 g dried prawns ,soak well.
50 g shallots
1 cm piece of belachan,dried shrimp paste
200g thick coconut milk
6 bowls of water
300 g sweet potatoes
salt to taste

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into 2cm cubes, soak in salt water for 10 minutes.  Drained. Steam the sweet potatoes for 10 minutes. Leave aside for later use.

Wash and peel the wild pepper leaves, leave a side. Wash and discard the seeds from the red chilies. Wash and peel the shallots.  Pound the chilies, shallots, dried prawns and belachan until fine using the hand pounder.

In a soup pot, boil the water.  Put in the pound ingredients.  Boil for 15 minutes in low fire.  Turn the fire to medium after 15 minutes, put in the wild pepper leaves, give it a boil.  Pour in the coconut milk and  sweet potatoes salt to taste.  Off the fire when the soil is boiled again.  Serve hot.  This soup can eat at itself or serve with rice.

So happy that I was able to note down all the ingredients and the method for cooking this soup. Its very simple. This is a lemak soup because of the coconut milk.  The sweetness taste come from the boiled dried prawns.  Oh.....very nice, I manage to eat 2 bowls of it without any rice.



Bitter guard soup

I was in the wet market this morning.  Overheard 2 ladies sharing their ingredients and methods of cooking soups.  I was curious when they were mentioning about cooking bitter guard soup.  I was wondering how to cook soup with such a bitter melon. I joined them to know more about this soup and wanted to try cooking it.  They were so generous that they shared with me the ingredients for boiling the soup. There are 2 main types of bitter guard in our market, the normal and the small very bitter bitter guards.

Many has turned bitter guard into capsules and tea bags dueto the medicinal use.  In fact, many Chinese has been using this melons as remedy for reducing high blood pressure and diabetic.

The ingredients for the soup

300 g bitter guard
4 medium tomatoes
150 g char choi(sichuan pickle)
300 g port or chicken
4 pieces of to fu
8 bowls of water.

Soak the char choi for at least for 1 hour.  Wash and sliced.  Wash and scald the meat for 5 minuted. Rinse and drained. Cut the tomatoes into quarters. Remove the seeds of the bitter guard.  Cut into 4 cm slices.

Boil the water in a soup pot. Put in all the ingredients except the to fu.  Simmer for about 1 hour in low fire. Need not add any salt because the soup get the taste of salt from the char choi. Off the fire then put in the to fu. Serve hot with rice.

Bitter guard soup garnish with chopped spring onion and parsley

Surprisingly there is no taste of bitterness in the soup but sweet from the meat, a little of sour taste from the tomatoes, and a special taste of (kam kam).  My husband like this new soup very much and me too.

Chicken herbal soup

With the chicken stock, I add in a packet of Chinese herbal, and bought a black chicken to add in the stock.

the ingredients
8 bowls of chicken stock(add water if there is not enough of stock)
1 whole black chicken(chopped into 4 pieces)
1 packet of Chinese herb for soup
salt to taste

All the contents of the packet of the herbal for the soup

Wash the herbs and put into the boiling chicken stock.   Turn to low fire to cook for half an hour.

Remove the skin of the chicken and scald in hot water for about 1 minute.  Wash and drain.  Put into the herbal soup and simmer for an hour.  Add in salt to taste.

This is the ginseng herbal soup.  It has the taste of ginseng and the sweetness of the chicken stock.

White carrot soup

Ingredients for my carrot soup
300 g white carrots
300 g pork ribs
5  medium dried scallops
7  red dates
1 slice of dried squid
1 tsp of peppercorn
7 bowls of water
salt to taste

Peel the carrots and cut into triangle in shapes. Scald the pork in hot water for about 5 minutes,wash and rinse. Wash the red dates.dried scallops and dried squid.  Lightly crash the peppercorn. Boil the water in a soup pot, put in all the ingredients except the salt. Let it boil for 1 and half hour in slow fire. Add salt to taste. Garnish with parsley and serve hot.

My clear and sweet carrot soup