Chinese Scallops

White Fungus Huai San and Chicken Soup

White Fungus Huai San and Chicken Soup

My colleague was sharing with me the other day about a soup that she said her toddler son literally polished two bowls of the soup. Yes, according to her, it was that good. Well, I have to try it to believe it. I asked her for the recipe of course and while she told me the portions, my lightning fast mind went to work on how it would be like if I were to cook it.

Unfortunately I was so in deep thought that I totally forgotten the last ingredient that she mentioned. It was some ingredient that enhanced the flavours of chicken and white fungus. I couldn’t be bothered to ask her again and decided that I would make up the third ingredient with something that I was familiar with – huai san – my oh-so-sticky friend.

The tuber is really one of the slimmest ingredient I have ever work with before, so that’s one of the reasons why I rarely employ the use of this ingredient. But I felt white fungus and chicken would do well with huai san for this soup. And so, here we go. My first attempt at this soup.

Oh by the way, I’m case you’re wondering, my wife thought the Oxtail Stew with Carrots that I made the other day was only so-so. Personally, I thought it was fantastic.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 large Chicken Drums (de-boned)
A packet of White Fungus
A tube of Huai San (you can get from NTUC)
A few Chinese Scallops
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Dump the chicken drums (with thigh meat) into the pot. Empty the packet of White Fungus into a bowl of water, let it soak for a while so that it will expand. Then once it is ready, dump it into the pot. (when I first made this soup, I made a newbie mistake of not soaking, and it soaked up all my delicious soup while it was in the thermal cooker!)

2. Clean the huai san and then chop into chunks, then dump it into the pot. Add a few dried scallops and salt to taste. Add boiling water. Turn to high heat for 15 minutes with lid on. Once done, place in thermal cooker to consume 12 hours later.

Bon Appetit!

Asparagus (Stir Fry)

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Asparagus (Stir Fry)

I love thick stock asparagus, and especially if fried with tiger prawns or large prawns per se. Somehow the two of them tango very well. The social glue here that makes it all great is the minced garlic and light soy sauce.

When they all come together, it is just simply amazing. You got to try this simple recipe. It doesn’t become the main dish, but it really enhances the meal at dinner.

With the Chinese scallop dancing in between them, magic truly happens.

Recipe

Ingredients

7-8 large stalks of Asparagus
1 tbsp of minced Garlic
6 medium fresh Prawns
5-6 Chinese Scallops
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce

Method

1. Cut asparagus into diagonal slices, ensuring consistency in shape and size. Reserve aside.

2. Heat oil in frying pan, then add minced garlic. Turn heat to medium and watch over garlic to make sure it doesn’t burn but only browns. To prevent burning you can add more oil, although most would prefer not.

3. Add dried scallops into frying pan to fry. I know the recommendation is to soak them first, but I want the flavour to be stronger and for it to infuse with the oil. Once the fragrance of the scallops has been mixed with the garlic, it is time to add the prawns. Stir fry the prawns until it turns a hue of red, then immediately add the asparagus into the pan.

4. Fry till asparagus is shiny and softened. I use a pan-flip technique for this dish so that there is proper mixing of ingredients. I find this technique really useful when you want to get an all round even cooking outcome. Add the soy sauce and continue to do the pan-flip.

5. By now you should also observe that the minced garlic has caramelised with the juice of the prawns into a fragrant paste. Wah, delicious. If it smells great by now, that’s because it really is.

Bon Appetit!

Chicken and Potato Soup

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Chicken and Potato Soup

My wife said to me one day, “can you cook some other kind of soup?” That to me is a sign that I have to constantly innovate and come up with new concoctions of soups. I guess I have been a little lazy as well, opting to cook the convenient Easy as ABC types of soups and admittedly, we have been drinking a lot of those soups as well, especially the Lotus and Radish Soup which I have been cooking week-in, week-out. Maybe wifey drink until scared liao.

So I asked her, “what kind of soup would you like to drink then?” The answer was kind of unexpected because she wanted a really simple Chicken and Potato Soup. That sounds like Chicken Soup for the Soul (think: Best Selling Book). Well, as I love a good challenge, and since we already have the required ingredients in my well stocked kitchen, I set out to develop a simple recipe. I think it’s gonna be great!

So I decided that I would bring together my great collaborators – Chinese Scallops and Yellow Onion. They are distinctively different, but yet somehow, they add to the great flavour that is Chicken Soup. I can already smell the flavours coming together. Here’s my recipe for Chicken and Potato Soup.

 

Recipe

Ingredients

2 x Chicken Drumsticks

1 x Chicken Carcass

15-20 Chinese Scallops

5 medium size Potatoes

1 large Yellow Onion

Half a teaspoon of Sea Salt

 

 

Method

1. First of all, place the chicken carcass and the chicken drumsticks (frozen) into the pot. Boil a kettle of water, then pour it into the pot, make sure that it covers the chicken. Then add the scallops into the pot and turn on high heat to boil.

2. Then peel potatoes, and rough chop these into pieces. After that is done, add them into the pot to cook. Slice up a yellow onion and add in the pot last. Continue to boil for another 10 minutes. Add salt to taste. Then turn off fire and put pot into the thermal cooker. That’s all, easy.

Bon Appetit!

 

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Kai Lan (Stir Fry)

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Kai Lan (Stir Fry)

One of the best kai lan vegetable are the ones that are from the wet market (always thought that there was only one type). But where were these from? I don’t know, and I don’t really care unless I was tasked to write a thesis on the types of Kai lan vegetable in the world. That I guess is also not about to happen any time soon, so yup, don’t really care.

But that said, wet market kai lan is really good. The vegetables is crunchy and stays fresh even though we kept it in the fridge for over two days before frying it up.

So if you want something simple and easy to prepare, this is it. Enjoy.

Recipe

Ingredients

Bunch of Kai Lan
7-8 Chinese Scallops
4 cloves of Garlic
80 grams of Pork Belly
Olive Oil
Light Soy Sauce

Method

1. Heat 3 tbsp of oil in wok, then fry minced garlic over low heat until fragrant. Then throw the pork belly into the wok and turn the heat to medium and stir fry until pork belly is fragrant (these are the pork belly that I made and store for frying vegetables).

2. Then add the Chinese Scallops and continue frying. After a few minutes, now dump the kai lan into the wok and fry until the kai lan vegetable is softened. Add a little light soy sauce and serve.

Bon Appetit!!

Dou Miao (Stir Fry)

Ho Sim Lang

Dou Miao (Stir Fry)

I never had dou miao growing up back in the day, so when this very simple bean-sprout-like vegetable started appearing in our supermarkets, I thought maybe it was some mutant version of the even more humble bean sprout. Then I realised that you could grow this indoors with your very own hydroponic starter kit for beginners. Yup, I searched it out on Amazon. Pretty amazing huh? Of course, I also realised that you could grow pretty much whatever you wanted to at home.

So by the name I guess it originated from China or Taiwan (actually I don’t really know). And since nobody bothered to change the name, I guess dou miao it is then. The taste of the vegetable is slightly bitter and has that raw chlorophyll-like taste if uncooked (actually I don’t know what chlorophyll tastes like), so it has to be cooked well. It is usually thin and skinny, about 8-10cm lengths, although I half suspect dou miao in other countries probably might look slightly different. So maybe the name dou miao could be a generic term for vegetables that grow from bean sprouts.

Anyway, my wife loves dou miao and that’s all that matters. I bought a pack from the local supermarket and decided to cook it the way I like. Lots of garlic and with Dried Chinese Scallops. Yum.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 pack of Dou Miao
7-8 dried Chinese Scallops
4-5 pcs Garlic
Olive oil
Light Soy Sauce

Method

1. Soak the Chinese Scallops in hot water. Mince the garlic. Then heat the wok with the olive oil. Once oil is heated, fry garlic over medium heat until garlic is fragrant.

2. Fry scallops together with garlic, reserve liquid as stock. Add dou miao and fry until soften, add stock of scallops and cover lid of wok for 5 minutes. Once dou miao is softened, add light soy sauce and stir fry a little more.

Bon Appetit!!