Simple Cooking Ideas

Archive for the ‘Soup’ Category

Here is wintermelon soup that is simple to prepare and quick to remove to the dinning table. This soup is cooling to the body and is just suitable on a hot sunny day.

Ingredients:

500 gm wintermelon, removed seeds and cut into cubes
100gm lean meat or chicken breast, cut into cubes
2 slices ginger
1 tin button mushrooms
1 tablespoon parsley and spring onion to garnish
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Peel winter melon and dice. marinate meat salt and pepper and add a teaspoon of cornflour. Put a side for 30 minutes. Meanwhile open acan of Botton mushrooms. Pour 4 cups of water into a pot and bring to boil. Add meat , ginger, wintermelon and button mushrooms. Bring to boil and simmer for half an hour. Add salt and pepper to taste and a few dash of sesame oil. Serve on a soup bowl and garnish with parsley and spring onions.

Here is a simple sea-food soup to try. After coming home from work, you can prepare thisfast and nuitritous soup for your family. You need some dry mushrooms which must be soaked and washed clean the day before. Frozen squid must be thawed below the compartment in the fridge. Celery, big onions and tomatoes are added to this soup.

Ingredients:serve 4

300 gm clean squid, defrost
1 stalk celery. cut slant-wise
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
1 big onion cut into wedges
6 meduim sized Chinese mushrooms, soaked and cleaned
1 litre fresh chicken stock, prepared earlier
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Chopped pasley to garnish

Method:

Bring water to boil in a pot. Blanch squids and mushrooms. Cut the squids into rings and slice the mushrooms. Put aside . Blanch the rest of the vegetables. Pour away the hot water and add chicken stock to boil. Put in all the ingredients except the squids and bring to boil for 15 minutes. Put the squids in and bring to boil. Add sesame oil, salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with parsley and serve.

This is a Thai dish which is popular in Thailand. It is basically ‘chilli hot’with the addition of locally grown aromatic herbs and grass. Here is a quick home-cooked tom yam for those who like a spicy taste of the soup.

Ingredients: serves 6

6 large fresh prawns, shelled and deveined, leaving the tail intact
2 stalk lemon grass
5 shallots
5 chill padi, seeded and cut into half
3 kaffir leaves or limau perut leaves
2 tablespoon oil
30 gm ready bought sambal belacan
freshly chopped coriander leaves
2 litres water

Method:

Shelled and deveined the prawns, leaving the tail intact. retain the heads. Cut the lemon grass into short lengths and pound alittle with the back of a knife. Cut the onions finely. Half the chilli padi. Heat the oil in a pot and stir-fry the onions, lemon grass, prawn heads for about 3 to 4 mins and add the water. Add in the limau perut leaves and sambal. Cover pot and bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the prawns and cook till tender but still firm. Pour in the lime juice and add salt to taste. Throw in the chopped coriander leaves and serve immediately.

This soup is common in the Chinese family. The Chinese is so used to having soup with their meals. Especially when richly stewed soup is nourishing for health. Here are the eight types of Chinese herbs to boil with chicken bones or pork ribs.

Ingredients:

20 gm lotus seeds
15 gm dried longans
15 gm Huai Shan
15 gm Dang Sum
15 gm Yuk Chuk
10 gm Qi Zi
10 gm Fook Sun
10 red dates
600 gm chicken carcass or pork ribs
salt to taste

Method:

Wash all herbs and put in soup pot and add enough water to boil. Scald chicken bones or pork ribs in boiling water before putting in the pot to boil together with the herbs. Bring to boil over high heat. Turn to low heat and continue to boil for 2 to 3 hours. Season with salt and serve.

Chinese soups are prepared in the morning so that they are ready for lunch. After lunch the soup is boiled again once more to keep for dinner. For a tasty soup, it musst bring to the boil on high for a few minutes and lower the heat to simmer for about 2 to 3 hours.

Ingredients:

50 gm brow beans (mei tau)
50 gm peanuts
3oo gm pig’s bone
3 pairs chicken feet, removed nails
38 gm mussels, soaked in water till soft
5 red dates
a quarter piece tangerine peel, soaked in water till soft
2 slices ginger
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Clean chicken feet and blanch pig’s bone and chicken feetin boiled water. Rinse and put aside ready to be boiled. Rinsed and clean dried mussels, brow beans, peanuts, red dates and tangerine peels.

Bring suitable amount of water to the boil and add in all the ingredients. Bring to the boil for 5 minutes on high, lower heat and simmer for 2 hours. Season with salt, pepper and soya sauce. Serve while is hot.
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This is a nourishing soup. Catfish can be available in the wet markets and super markets. The fish is very slimy. You have to scald with boiling water to clean it. Then rub with salt all over to clean again. Rinse and put aside for later use.

Ingredients serves 5 to 6 persons)

500 kg catfish, cleaned and cut into big pieces
500 gm black beans, rinsed and clean
1 piece dried tangerine peel
50 gm ‘tai tau choy’(pickled Chinese salted vegetable)
1 thumb-sized ginger, smashed
3 liter water

Method:

Add water and black beans, pickled vegetable, ginger and a piece of dried tangerine peel into a stainless steel pot and bring to boil. Add in fish and continue to simmer for 2 hours. Season with salt and serve.