pork ribs

Potato and Pork Ribs Soup

Potato and Pork Ribs Soup

After a pretty long hiatus from blogging, and largely due to the fact that I haven’t been cooking as much, I am somewhat starting to cook again, and this is as a request from the Wife, not because she reads my blog or anything but more because we have become more busy and thus the pertinent need to get back to cooking great tasting, simple soups for dinner.

Yes I miss cooking my home feasts too. And maybe she felt it and wanted me to kickstart the nutritious home-cooking again. Admittedly, eating out is so much more convenient. And since our fridge broke down recently, whatever stores we bought would be rotting in the defunct ice box. It didn’t help that the repair man was smoking us (and his company) by making multiple trips down to fix a seemingly simple problem. He kept testing and testing the fridge like as if it was his personal pet project. We were duped week after week into thinking that each week that he came would be the last, and that we could resume our cook-outs for dinner.

Finally, we got another repairman and the problem was solved instantly. But by that time we had already stopped cooking for a while. And I had also gotten busy and stopped going to the wet market on Saturdays. It’s as what one would say a domino effect. I did not do the marketing and therefore did not have the ingredients to cook and therefore we all ate out.

This soup came at her request. A simple no nonsense and fuss free soup. I am still quite curious as to how it would turn out. Just potatoes and pork ribs. Well, we will know soon tonight.

Ingredients:

Pork Ribs (250 grams)

Potatoes (about 3 larges ones)

1 tsp Sea Salt

Method:

  1. Parboil the ribs in hot boiling water to get rid of impurities. Pour the water away.
  2. Peel the potatoes, cut into cubes and then dump them into the pot. Add the sea salt.
  3. Boil at high heat for 15 minutes, turn off the fire and then place the pot into the thermal cooker (vacuum) and allow it to cook for the next 12 hours while you’re at work.
  4. When you’re ready to eat, boil again, and you can serve.

Bon Appetit!

Home-Made Hokkien Mee

Home-Made Hokkien Mee

Sometimes I see the food court stall with the title “home-made..” worded nicely before whatever it was that they were selling and I would usually think to myself, “is it clean?” LOL. I know how I cook at home, and it is definitely not Michelin world class standard kitchen. My kitchen; my rules.

But if you are selling something and you have a shop front, just say it like it is, you made it at the shop. Wouldn’t that be less ambiguous and clearer for me the customer? Okay okay. I will stop ranting.

Back to my wicked home-made Hokkien Mee. I don’t mean to brag, but it is really not bad. Of course, I am no puritan chef, I am home cook. I cook what makes sense to me and whatever resources I could get my hands on.

So for Hokkien Mee, the key ingredient is the stock. If you got the stock wrong, you may as well go out and eat. So what goes into the stock, it is no nonsense chicken stock my friend. Let’s not kid ourselves here. How can we cook Hokkien Mee without chicken stock?! You have to be a master chef.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s begin.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 packet Green Lip Mussels (wash and scrub the shells off of any beards or debris)
6 Medium Grey Prawns (leave them whole, no need to peel)
1 large or a few Squids (wash clean and sliced)
250 grams Pork Ribs (blanched and remove scum)
50 grams Lean Pork (sliced thinly)
1 packet Egg Noodles
1 packet White Bee Hoon
A few sprigs of Spring Onions (wash and chop off both ends)
1 packet Chicken Stock (chicken broth)
Half a teaspoon powdered Chicken Stock

Method:

1. Prepare the broth (or stock) for the Hokkien Mee by boiling all the seafood and pork ribs. In a pot, pour about a litre of water, turn up the heat, and start boiling the packet of green lip mussels. The broth is to be used for the stock. The mussel meat can be used for ingredients later or discarded. I usually keep them as ingredients.

2. Boil the squid next for about 30 seconds in high heat, in that same stock. Then quickly take the squid pieces out and run them over cold water to stop them from cooking further. Squid tends to harden if you cook them too long. The key is to cook quickly or cook them long long.

3. Next drop the prawns whole (with shells) into the broth and cook them until they curl into the shape of a letter C. “C” stands for cooked. If it curls into the shape of an “O”, then it means “Overcooked”. The prawns will sweeten the broth further. Once the prawns are cooked, de-shell the prawns and drop the shells back into the broth to continue cooking.

4. Next boil the pork ribs and lean pork. Take out the lean pork slices and reserve aside. You may continue boiling the pork ribs with the prawn shells.

5. This is where you add a packet of that chicken broth and by doing so essentially changes the whole dynamics of the soup stock. Now it should be very tasty.

6. The actual cooking of the Hokkien Mee is actually assembly. Ladle the broth into a wok, turn up the heat, drop the noodles/bee hoon into the wok and stir. Then add the cooked ingredients in to cook and a few sprigs of the spring onions. This is where you add the powdered chicken stock to complete the taste. It really does taste like bona fide Hokkien Mee.

I usually reserve the excess stock so that I can cook Hokkien Mee on demand. Easy.

Bon Appetit!

Green Lip Mussels

Lean Pork Slices

Medium Grey Prawns

Squid

Sin Thor Bak Kut Teh

Chanced upon this Bak Kut Teh stall at block 107 Tampines street 11. The food is actually not too bad. I ordered the long bone ribs and a plate of kiam chye side order. These guys know what they are doing. The ribs are fall off the bone tender, and the kiam chye was nicely done, not too salty.

The only problem I had with the stall is the part where they say “self service”. I mean how to get soup refills if it is self-service? Damn unfriendly I feel. I had to bring my bowl back to the store to ask for a soup refill. I know it is minor issue, but the bowl of soup they gave was so little. The soup’s was fantastic. Nicely peppery and not too over the top.

I wouldn’t go back, but only if I was passing by there. This time round I will get two bowls of soup.

Bitter Gourd Soup

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Bitter Gourd Soup

I have done another version of this soup previously and it is called Bitter Gourd and Pork Ribs Soup. In that version, I added a slice of dried octopus to which my wife complained that she did not like it that much. I thought initially that the flavours of the dried octopus would have sweetened the soup. I guess some people really like their soups basic.

Which is not a bad thing for the cook. It is already quite tedious to cook on demand as a routine, so cooking basic and simple is definitely something that I like. And it tastes better in an interesting way as well as the soups are not complex and is easily understood. Sometimes whenever I am eating out, I am guessing what actually went into the making of the soup. Great tasting soups should be singular in nature and if possible with a simple meat base to make the soup stronger in flavour.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 whole Bitter Gourd (I usually like the larger size ones as my family loves bitter gourd)
250 grams Pork Ribs (my pork ribs are usually frozen when I cook them. There is no need to thaw the meat before cooking.)
1 tsp Sea Salt (for 1.8 litres of water)

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water (about 1.8 litres). Wash and cut the bitter gourd into 1cm slices.

2. Place the pork ribs into the soup pot. Place the bitter gourd slices into the pot as the picture above. Add salt. Add the boiling water. Boil at high heat for 15 minutes.

3. Then place the pot into the thermal cooker for cooking either overnight so that you can make a bee hoon bitter gourd soup for breakfast or just as a soup accompaniment for dinner. Allow the thermal cooker to do its work for at least 8 to 10 hours. That’s it. Easy.

Bon Appetit!

Pumpkin Tomato Soup

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Pumpkin Tomato Soup

Interestingly the vegetables and meat arranged in that manner kind of looks cheesy and seem to resemble the letters “COI”, which seem also to mean conflict of interest. Honestly, I don’t see how there could be any conflict of interest here. Conflict of Ingredients maybe? Again it is not likely either because this soup tasted absolutely gorgeous.

But one thing though, the pumpkin after 12 hours of thermal cooker magic kind of makes it mushy and not the texture that I wanted. I was a tad disappointed. The taste of the soup on the other hand was fantastic and that was all that matters. Taste wise, it was a home-run. So that’s two thumbs up. Hurray.

Recipe

Ingredients

A small slice of Pumpkin (just the regular type will do)
A large Tomato (cut into quarts)
250 grams of Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Slice the pumpkin into chunks. Quart the tomato. Place the pork ribs into the pot. Dump the prepared ingredients into the pot. Pour the hot water into the pot, add a little salt and boil for about 20 minutes on high heat before placing the pot into the thermal cooker. Allow at least 12 hours to cook the soup.

Bon Appetit!

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Pumpkin Chunks

Old Cucumber Melon Soup

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Old Cucumber Melon Soup

The old Cucumber Melon can readily be found almost everywhere and is available at your local wet market grocer or NTUC supermarkets. But for some reason, I have resisted cooking it until now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this traditional soup especially at the Chinese restaurants and sometimes at the food courts. But like the Burdock Soup 牛蒡汤, I have only recently started cooking this melon soup.

Simple, nutritious and delicious. If I can do it, anyone can.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 medium size Old Cucumber Melon
10 pieces Dried Red Dates
5 pieces Dried Scallops
2 pieces Dried Octopus
250 grams Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Cut the old Cucumber in half and gorge out the seeds with a spoon. Then chop into chunks. Place the pork ribs, red dates, scallops, octopus and the prepared melon into the pot. Add a little salt. Pour in a kettle of boiling water into the pot.

2. Boil for at least 20 minutes. Then place the pot in the thermal cooker and re-heat after 12 hours when you are back from work.

Bon Appetit!

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Old Cucumber Melon

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Delicious Old Cucumber Melon Soup

Lotus Peanut and Pork Ribs Soup

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Lotus Peanut and Pork Ribs Soup

I have always wanted to make this soup, but have until now been unable to do so for one reason or another. This was largely due to the fact that I was always forgetting to buy that one crucial ingredient – peanuts.

Now that I have gotten over that hurdle. I can finally make this Lotus Peanut and Pork Ribs Soup. Actually I believe I have made this soup once before but the peanuts didn’t cook as well as I would have liked. But that could also be because I was boiling the soup as opposed to cooking it in a 12 hour thermal cooking process. Also, I didn’t pre-soak the peanuts as most tradition home cooks would advise.

So I did it my way, and to be honest, the experts are right. You really need to pre-soak the peanuts overnight. Oh well, at least I managed to get a rather soft peanut, but not soft enough. Plus I kept it in the thermal cooker for more than 12 hours. Didn’t know peanuts are so resilient.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 long tube Lotus Root (they say the lotus root should be covered in mud, otherwise not so good quality)
A bowl of Peanuts (better to pre-soak overnight, I tried not soaking and failed, so please soak)
1-2 pieces of Dried Octopus
250 grams of Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Place frozen pork ribs into pot. Throw the pre-soaked peanuts into the pot. Throw the dried octopus into the pot also. Wash the lotus root, shave off the skin, then slice the tubular root into beautiful shapes. After that throw into the pot. Add a pinch of salt to taste. Add boiling hot water. Boil for 20 minutes. After that, place in thermal cooker for 12 hours and let the magic happen.

Bon Appetit!

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Sliced Lotus Root

Carrot Corn Tomato Mushroom Soup

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Carrot Corn Tomato Mushroom Soup

I tend to use only two types of meats for my soup base. Either pork ribs from Indonesia or carcass of chicken. Both yields a very lovely soup with my preference leaning more towards a pork base flavoured soup. But I tend to leave out the meats that flavours the soup when naming them because it just gets too wordy. Don’t worry, I will still make mention of them in the ingredient listing.

So today’s soup puts a twist to the ever popular ABC soup. The confinement recipe is great for mummies who are breastfeeding, somehow what you eat is what baby will grow to love when they grow up. I am adding dried shitake mushrooms into the soup today and I know that it will taste absolutely fantastic.

Just an update on the soup that I was trying out, the Carrot Radish Bamboo Burdock Soup. Interestingly the soup was suitably muted, which came as a surprise as I was sure the taste of the soup would have a strong radish or burdock flavour. Instead there was no outstanding ingredient that stood out. It tasted very nice.

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams of Pork Ribs
1 medium sized Carrot
1 ear of Corn
1 large Tomato
4-5 pieces Dried Shitake Mushrooms
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Peel and chop the carrot into chunks. Chop the corn into 8 pieces. Quart the tomato. Soak the mushrooms and then slice them. Place the frozen pork ribs into the pot. Then add the rest of the prepared ingredients into the pot.

2. Once water is boiled, add into the pot. Add salt to taste. Boil at high heat for 20 minutes.

3. After boiling, place the pot into the thermal cooker and come back 12 hours later to have it for dinner.

Bon Appetit!

Carrot Radish Bamboo Burdock Soup

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Carrot Radish Bamboo Burdock Soup

There are times when clarity is no longer there, and we are now into unchartered waters. I looked into my fridge and the slew of ingredients that I bought over the weekend, and for the life of me, I couldn’t recall the recipe that someone suggested for me to do.

That problem could be compounded by the fact that information fly at us all the time, in simultaneous fashion, and unstoppable. To the point that if we heard something interesting, and if we didn’t make a special effort to note it down, then it is likely to be lost in the wasteland of forgotten words.

I vaguely remember it, and it goes something like, this plus this plus that and that. Bah! I can’t remember. Forget it.

So today, I am making carrot radish bamboo burdock soup. Making it in the way that I always like to do, and that is to keep it simple.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 medium Carrot
1 medium White Radish
1 packet of fresh Bamboo
80-90 cm length of Burdock Root
250 grams Pork Ribs
Sea Salt

Method

1. Peel, shave the carrot, the radish and the burdock. If you want, you may soak the burdock first. Otherwise throw the prepared ingredients into the pot. By this time the frozen pork ribs would already be in place and waiting (with open arms and open palms).

2. Slice the bamboo, not too small slices, you don’t want the bamboo to “disappear”. Again once it is ready, just throw them into the pot. Add two pinches of salt and add a boiling kettle of water. Turn heat high and boil furiously for at least 20 minutes. After that is done, place the pot into the thermal cooker and allow time and heat to work the romance. Come back 12 hours later, and it’s ready.

Bon Appetit!

Burdock Soup 牛蒡汤

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Burdock Soup 牛蒡汤

Some say you are what you eat. Eat wood, you become wood. Burdock root is well as truly wood. The woody stem of the Greater Burdock plant seems to have some nutritional goodness other then looking like a tree branch.

It tastes like ginseng and apparently help with eczematic skin conditions. Otherwise it is a very delicious soup to drink. The wife loves it.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Metre length of Greater Burdock
Handful of Wolfberries
Handful of Dried Red Dates
250 grams of Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Shave the bark off the burdock. Sliced it diagonally and soak in hot water for about ten minutes.

2. Boil a large kettle of water. Pour it into a pot. Turn on high heat. Add pork ribs, Wolfberries, red dates, and when the burdock is soaked, add it in as well.

3. Boil at high heat for 30 minutes with lid on. Serve. The ribs might not be drop off the bone tender but the soup is very good.

Bon Appetit!!

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Boiling the ingredients

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Greater Burdock Root

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Greater Burdock Root

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Greater Burdock Root

Sweet Corn, Carrots and Tomato Soup

Sweet Corn, Carrots and Tomato Soup

The item on the extreme right is frozen pork ribs just in case you are wondering. This is one of my favourite no-brainer soup for those days when you don’t want to plan or worry too much about what to cook for dinner. Some families call it the A-B-C Soup in Singapore, a hearty nutritious soup that every family with a young kid would love.

The ingredients when cooked together will truly produce one of the best flavours ever. Guaranteed that you and your family will love it. All natural and wholesome ingredients – what’s not to love? The sweet corn that I used is the covered one that when you unveil, is a sweet crunchy vegetable. I was surprised how sweet it was and even sweeter if they are from the farms in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. For the tomatoes, some like the soup to be sourish, so if you’re one of those that like it like that, then add more tomatoes. So after adding all the ingredients, the soup would be already be very tasty. Just a tablespoon of salt and 12 hours of thermal cooking, it would be ready to be served.

I also loved Shiitake Mushrooms in my soups. Normally I use the dried ones as they tend to keep longer. However, my wife and son are not fans, and so I decided to leave it out.

Some of you may ask, why use a Thermal Cooker instead of a regular pot over fire? Well the thermal cooker will help tenderise the meats – kind of like a slow cooker, and everything is just more flavourful if you cooked your meals that way. It works for busy families, where you would cook the soup in the mornings before heading off to the office, and then come back to re-heat it when you’re home at night.

A pot of A-B-C Soup is just perfect with steamed rice or Maggi noodles.

Anyway, I said all that to say that this recipe is so easy to prepare. Anyone can do it. Easy until I wanna cry.

* please note that I have included amazon affiliate links to the products I use, so check them out if you wish to support me, and if I can get these items from NTUC Supermarket, I would just indicate.

Recipe

Ingredients

200 grams Pork Ribs (Indonesian pork is the best)
1 ear (haha) of Sweet Corn (better still if they are from Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, those are white in colour and very juicy and sweet)
2 medium Carrots
1 medium Tomato or up to three Tomatoes (for that slightly sour taste)
1 Tablespoon of Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Place frozen pork ribs in thermal pot. The thermal cooker that I use for this is the Zojirushi SN-XAE60 Thermal Pot, just in case you’re interested to mimic the same cooking conditions.

2. Chop the corn into 8 parts. Slice the carrots into bite sized chunks. Quart the tomatoes. Dump everything into the pot. Drop in 1 tablespoon of salt. Pour in the hot water until it covers all the ingredients.

3. Turn on high heat for 15 minutes. Make sure the lid is on, and the water is bubbling. Then turn off the fire, and place the pot into the thermal cooker itself and close the outer lid. You can serve it 12 hours later or when you’re back from work, it would be perfect for dinner.

Bon Appetit!

Bitter Gourd and Pork Ribs Soup

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Bitter Gourd and Pork Ribs Soup

It seems like the unlikeliest of collaborations, more unlikely than the Lotus and Radish Soup. The bitter gourd and pork ribs is what most of us would already know, but to have an octopus swimming around in the soup, I bet the final taste would be out of this world.

As it is, the mixture of the bitterness that is in the bitter gourd juxtaposed with that of the fishy aftertaste of octopus, is probably gonna taste really yummy. I can’t wait to taste this soup tonight. Something about pork ribs that makes the soup taste so much better than chicken bones. It’s such a simple recipe anyone can do it.

Recipe

Ingredients

200 grams of Pork Ribs
1 whole Bitter Gourd
1 piece dried Octopus

Method

1. Boil water, then pour into pot with ribs and octopus and let them get acquainted. After boiling for about 10 minutes, add the sliced bitter gourd and some sea salt. Continue to boil for another 5 minutes at high heat.

2. When done, take and place in thermal cooker and eat it when you get home. Perfect.

Bon Appetit!

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Sliced Bitter Gourd

When Soups Get Complicated (Musing)

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When Soups Get Complicated (Musing)

There comes a time in the extended new dawn that there isn’t much to be afraid of anymore, where vampires and werewolves are just a figment of ingenious creative writing and gnomes and goblins become neighbours. There was no prodding or shoving of any kind this morning and I naturally got up and decided that there could be a greater purpose today than what it was originally intended for.

Time to make my soup, and perhaps a little more.

Today’s complicated soup of the day (just to prove that I am capable of complicated soups that still taste decent and nice), is none other than my easy as ABC soup, but with a little more pizzazz. So a complicated soup like this, would mean something like an ABCDEFG soup. I personally think that this soup has got great potential. It carries with it all the ingredients that came from near and far, and their masters’ blessings, hopes and understanding. These ingredients would typically hold its own weight, and be staple where they may come from. Carrots from Australia, Scallops from the sea of Japan, snowflakes from the top of the Himalayan ranges near the border. Yes, very exotic.

Ingredients that have no known origins, (actually I know where most of them came from) but where exactly, that is immaterial. What’s most important is that everyone is represented here in this huge pot, all ready to blend together and become one soup. So is it really a complicated soup then? Or is it really just a collation of many varied ingredients with distinct characteristics that would wow even the richest sheik or the wealthiest tycoon? Perhaps.

Recipe

Ingredients

200-250 grams of Pork Ribs *frozen or thawed – it doesn’t matter*

2 Carrots *cubed*

1 Sweet Corn *chopped*

1 Medium Yello Onion *sliced*

5 Dried Scallops (Japanese)

5 Dried Red Dates

1 handful of Wolfberries

 

Method:

1. Par boil the pork ribs and then discard the water. Boil a fresh pot of water, add all the ingredients and bring to an intense boil.

2. Once boiled for 15 minutes. The soup is ready for the thermal cooker.

3. Come back home and drink the soup.

Bon Appetit!

 

 

 

Black Bean, Radish and Pork Ribs Soup

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Black Bean, Radish and Pork Ribs Soup

Day two of the new dawn. Still no twilight vampires or werewolves. I got up early to make my soup of the day. The very Chinese Black Bean, Radish and Pork Ribs Soup. This should be good. I can already imagine how it would and should taste like by tonight. The tenderising effect of the thermal cooker is not to be discounted. I mean what goes on within the pot is just simply amazing. The pork ribs will be tender, the vegetables soft and everyone just so delicious.

I usually don’t salt my soup when cooking them, just so as not to complicate the natural flavours of the ingredients. There must always be clarity in whatever soup we do. So when the soup is ready to be consumed, I must be able to tell the ingredients apart upon tasting, most importantly I must be able to enjoy my soup. Salt tends to confuse our tastebuds. That said, I usually add a pinch of sea salt just before serving for that little bit of taste. Like her friend garlic, salt can only be servant to the dish, but never a master – that’s only if you aren’t making salt-baked chicken.

So I decided that I would try out my own rendition of this classic soup. I tried searching for a video on YouTube using the keywords “black beans and pork ribs” – but to no avail. It seems that Asian cooks aren’t so keen on taking videos of their cooking as compared to some really awful videos of cooking processes. Those are not cooking demonstrations IMHO – they are more like sanctifying rituals of epic proportions. One moment is do this, set apart that, next is remove this, reserve that. I mean, how is anyone going to learn how to cook anything if the ingredient list is so technical and most of them sound as if we have to climb a mountain to pluck it.

Practicality and simplicity should be what cooking is all about. Soups should be simple three to four ingredients – that’s it!

Anyway, before I get carried away, my version of the black bean soup is nothing short of simple. Try it!

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams Black Beans
250 grams Pork Ribs
1 large White Radish
4 Dried Scallops

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Method

1. Par boil the pork ribs to remove scum. Slice radish into quarts and dump them into the pot. Then dump all the black beans into the pot as well. Drop 3-4 dried scallops to flavour the soup.

2. Fill the pot with water until all ingredients are covered. Turn on high heat for about 15 minutes. Once the soup is boiling and bubbling, turn off the fire and place the pot in the thermal cooker.

Note:

If you are unsure of how the thermal cooker looks like, I have a photo appended.

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Bon Appetit!