Chicken Soup

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Both of us are chilli-crazies. We just cant live without chillies, cant we? Chillies really "spice" up our life. And bcoz of that, soup is never in our favourite list - be it beef, chicken or fish.

But then, once in a while it's quite nice to have a soup for lunch. Too much of everything (chillies especially) is not good anyway. The chicken soup I'm cooking today is based on a special recipe from Ms. Tulip of MYR. It's a special recipe that makes a very delicious soup indeed. My appreciation to Ms. Tulip for sharing the wonderful recipe....muahhhhh.

Chicken Soup
Source : Ms. Tulip




Ingredients

1/2 chicken
1/2 onion, finely blend
1 garlic, finely blend
1/2 inch ginger, bruised
1/2 stick of cinnamon
2 pcs. cloves
1 pc. anise
2 pcs. cardamon
1 potato, cut into 4 pcs
1 small carrot, cut into desired shape
1/2 bowl of water
Pepper, salt & chicken stock
Celery, scallion & fried onions


How To

Boil the water, add in the spices, turn off the flame & cover the pot.

Set it aside till the it becomes lukewarm. Strain the spices & keep the lukewarm water aside.

Heat the oil & fry the onion & garlic till fragrant. Then put in the ginger & spices, fry for a while.

Add in chicken & make sure they are well mixed with the fried ingredients. Fry under a small flame for about 1o min.

Pour in the lukewarm water with another bowl of plain water. Add more water as you desired.

Once the soup boils, add in the potato & carrot. Then followed by salt, pepper & chicken stock to your taste.

Turn of the heat & sprinkle with celery, scallion & fried onions. Cover the pot completely for about 20 mins to let the aroma being absorbed into the soup.

Serve hot with rice / bread / on its own.

Tom Kha Gai

Let's take a break for a while from all the so many holiday stories of my KK trip recently. Honestly, there are many more to come...... so, just brace yourself for this few more days, ok.

For today's buka puasa menu, I have prepared this special dish for both me & Marsya. It was a few years ago while I was in Bangkok that I first tasted this soup. It tasted very similar to Tom Yam - it's just that this particular Tom Yam has a coconut milk inside it, which makes it milkier than the normal Tom Yam.

Since it was love at a first taste, I straight away googled for the recipe the moment I'm back in KL. Of all the recipes I've tried, with some minor modification, this has proven to be the best.


Ingredients

400 gm chicken meat
1 cube of chicken stock
1 bulb galanghal, sliced
5 lemon grass, crushed
3 kaffir lime leaves, torn
100 gm straw mushrooms
4 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
3 cups of thin coconut milk
10 bird's eye chillies, bruised


How To

1. Bring to boil the chicken stock along with lemon grass, galanghal & lime leaves.

2. Add the chicken, mushroom, salt, lime juice, fish sauce & sugar.

3. Simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Add the coconut milk & chillies.

5. Bring almost to boil, stirring frequently, then remove from heat.

6. Ready to serve.


Tips : Add other vegetables like cauliflower, carrot, celery & sweet peas for varieties.


There you go. For a change, why not surprise your family with this special soup today. I'm sure they'll be pleasantly satisfied with this surprise menu.

Happy trying !

Tomato Soup

This is one soup everybody should try. It's the best tomato soup I've ever had in my life - honestly.. I, myself was shocked with the outcome of this recipe. Not only the ingredients are simple, the preparation of the soup itself is nothing that complicated either. I didnt expect such a simple & easy recipe could turned out so great.

Those who loves tomato soup should try this recipe out. Once you've tried it, I'm pretty sure you wouldnt wanna have a tomato soup other that this particular ones. The recipe for this wonderful soup is obtained from my favourite recipe website, MyResepi, with some personal modifications to suit my taste.

So, brace yourself for this award winning recipe :

Ingredients

6 ripe, medium sized tomatoes
1 medium size potato
1 big onion, diced
3 garlics, pounded
1 tsp white pepper, pounded
Salt & sugar to taste


How To

1. Cut the tomatoes & potato into small sizes.

2. Fry the onion, garlic & white pepper till fragrant.

3. Add in the potato & tomatoes & fry for 2 - 3 mins.

4. Pour in water - enough to immerse the tomatoes & potato.

5. Let it boil & add salt, sugar & some grounded black pepper to taste

6. Boil them till the potato soften. Set aside to cool.

7. Blend the whole thing into a fine mixture.

8. Add some chopped parsley for the aroma.

9. Ready to serve.

Notes : Nice to be eaten with garlic bread. For the cheese lovers, you may sprinkle some cheese powder for an additional taste.

Salted Cabbage With Tofu Soup

Our second recipe for this week is a soup......and again, it's another simple dish that's gonna impress your taste bud. FYI, all of the recipes that will make an entrance in this blog this week are those of the healthy ones - which is of course, in parallel with my diet regime.....hehehe.

This particular recipe was inspired by the soup I had in Qing Zhen Chinese Muslim Restaurant @ Novotel Hotel a couple of weeks ago. I had lunch there with my other colleagues while entertaining our counterpart from Japan. It was a dim sum lunch buffet where one of the menu was the Salted Vegetable With Bean Curd Soup.

I fell in love with it the moment it makes physical contact with my tounge. The sourish taste of the salted cabbage blend in very well with the plain taste of the tofu. I love this particular soup very much that I planned to construct the recipe myself. This way, I could have it as often as I wish to. Based on my visual observation & the sensitivity of my tongue, I managed to come up with the recipe - with some modifications to localize the taste.

So, here are all the ingredients required :

Cooking it tremendously easy.

1. Fry the ginger, garlic & the crushed white pepper with a bit of oil, till fragrant.

2. Add in the chicken & continue frying for a minute or so.

3. Then, add in the water & wait till it boils.

4. Put in the salted vege & tofu. Salt to taste.

5. Finally add the leaks & turn off the flame.

6. You can now enjoy your soup - jangan lupa Bismillah !

Crab & Tanghoon Soup

Feel like eating something soupy for dinner but I cant afford to spend extra hours in the kitchen as I have a baking project awaiting for me tonight. As such, I opt for an instant soup which would definately saves a lot of my time. After checking all the options there in the supermarket....I mean, options for instant soups, I end up with this : Maggi Crab & Tanghoon Soup.

To make it more interesting & not so plain, I've added the Sweet Peas & Japanese Tofu. It turned out to be quite okay actually. Not bad for an instant food....not bad at all. Me & Marsya did enjoyed the soup very much.

Seafood Tomyam

Cooked Seafood Tomyam for dinner tonite. It's for my darling Marsya since she loves tomyam so much especially the one cooked by her mummy! I'm just gonna share the recipe to this tomyam of mine here :

Ingredients :

• 400 gm of seafood (I've used prawns & squids)
• 8 stalks of lemongrass, squashed
• 1 in2 galangal, crushed
• 3-4 kaffir lime leaves
• I big size of Bombay onion, sliced
• 6 garlics, pounded
• 8 - 10 cili padi, crushed
• 2.5 litres plain water
• 2 tablespoons Tom Yam paste
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• Vegetables (carrot, cauliflower, celery, mushrooms)

How To

• Heat oil & fry the garlic & galangal till fragrant. Add water.
• Put in the lemongrass & lime leaves and wait till it boils.
• Then put in the tom yam paste & carrots. Wait for a few minutes before putting in the cauliflower (coz the carrot takes a longer time to get soften).
• Later, put in the seafood & chillies. Followed by the lime juice, onion & mushrooms.
• Finally, the celery and dont forget to put salt & sugar to taste.
• Your Seafood Tom Yam is now ready to be served....enjoy !