CoCo's Kick-Ass Kimchi Soup

My last attempt at making Kimchi soup was a disaster. But this is one of my favorite Korean dishes, so I lay down my pride, do my homework, bought the right ingredients and the result was a KICK-ASS, super delicious kimchi soup. I seriously could charge people for a bowl of this spicy goodness.

I believe the key to this unbelievable success was the tub of hot pepper paste I bought at the Korean specialty store.



Also, I have to give credit to this great new blog I discovered. I altered his recipe a little, it was great. :)

So anyway, here's what you need.

250g pork belly, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 garlic, minced
1 small knob of ginger, minced
1 bowl of kimchi
1 bowl of cabbage
1/2 block of silken toufu
2 bowls of water
2 tablespoons of Korean hot pepper paste
2 teaspoons of soya sauce (I use fish soya sauce)
1 knob of butter
Spring onion, sliced for garnish

1. With a little sesame oil and regular cooking oil, fry the pork belly to get some of the oil out. Add in the onion, garlic and ginger and stir fry till fragrant.

2. Squeeze out some juice from the kimchi or get it from the jar. Add in the kimchi juice, the kimchi, the cabbage, water, hot pepper paste and soya sauce. Boil the soup for 15-20mins, add in the toufu at the last 5 mins.

3. Before serving, mix in the butter for a rich, flavour. Garnish with spring onions and serve with rice.

As I was typing this I realised that I forgot to add the shaoxing wine. But it delicious nonetheless! Next time I'll add it in. :)

CoCo's Lotus Root & Pork Rib Soup

Here's another delicious Cantonese style soup that's super easy to make. All you need is a few ingredients.

Lotus roots:
Choose a nice fat one, two sections would be enough for a pot of soup to serve 2-3 persons. The ones in the market is covered in mud, but supermarkets sell them nice and clean. I remove the skin, but it's optional. Just chop off the ends and slice them thinly.



Essential Flavours:
These are your very basic stuff you add into almost EVERY soup. Dried dates, wolfberries and some form of dried seafood. It can be dried octopus, dried mussels, or dried scallops. These would give your soup a nice flavour, or like the chinese say, 很鲜, so you don't need to add MSG.



Of course, it's a pork rib soup, so don't forget your pork rib! OK, now for the cooking process. Are you ready? Here's what you do...

Put everything into a pot with a teaspoon of salt, add water and boil in high heat. Once it's boiled, lower the heat and simmer for 2 hours. 1 hour for pressure cookers. :)



Measure your water according to how much soup you want to end up with. If you want to make 1 big soup bowl of soup, add one big bowl, plus about 1/3 more that would be boiled off during cooking.

CoCo's Homemade Kimchi Soup

We really eating Kimchi soup at restaurants, so one day I attempted to make Kimchi soup at home. I boiled some packaged kimchi with cabbage, leeks, tofu, vermicelli and pork with soup stock. Well, it looks good, but unfortunately was a little bland. Next time I'll up the flavour by adding more Kimchi and making the soup more spicy. :)

Pumpkin Soup

Half a pumpkin, skinned, seeded and chopped into big chuncks
1 stick of carrot
1 potato
1 big onion
1 clove of garlic
1 bowl of chicken stock
1 tsp of Oregano
Salt and Pepper

Dice onion finely and mince garlic
Fry them in oil with a pinch of salt till onion becomes soft
Add the rest of the vegetables, oregano and chicken stock
Boil in pressure cooker for 10 minutes (or about 30mins for a regular pot) till all vegetables turn soft.
Blend into a smooth and creamy soup.

For babies, serve with baby biscuits.
For adults, season with salt and pepper and serve with toasted bread.

Pumpkin Soup

Half a pumpkin, skinned, seeded and chopped into big chuncks
1 stick of carrot
1 potato
1 big onion
1 clove of garlic
1 bowl of chicken stock
1 tsp of Oregano
Salt and Pepper

Dice onion finely and mince garlic
Fry them in oil with a pinch of salt till onion becomes soft
Add the rest of the vegetables, oregano and chicken stock
Boil in pressure cooker for 10 minutes (or about 30mins for a regular pot) till all vegetables turn soft.
Blend into a smooth and creamy soup.

For babies, serve with baby biscuits.
For adults, season with salt and pepper and serve with toasted bread.

A1 Bak Ku Teh

Bought a packet of A1 Bak Ku Teh Spice to make Bak Ku Teh for dinner the other day. That was my first time trying this brand and I must say... IT'S DELICIOUS LOH~!!! One packet comes with 2 spice sachets, and according to the packaging, 1 sachet for about 500g of meat, so I only used 1 sachet.

So VERY SIMPLE, just follow the instructions on the packaging. (but no need to be so strict)
500g of meat (I used 2 packets of prime rib - BEST)
6 cloves of garlic (whole with skin on)
1 tablespoon of dark soya sauce
1 tablespoon of light soya sauce
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
a pinch of msg
pepper (I use freshly grounded white pepper - you can use regular pepper)
1 big bowl of water

**For water, my Mom taught me to use your choice of serving bowl, plus another 1/2bowl. For example, the portion that I want to cook was about 1 big soup bowl, so I pour 1 bowl plus another 1/2 bowl, as the half would be evaporated during boiling.**

The instruction say add the seasoning AFTER the meat has been cooked. But I think the meat would be more flavourful if you boil it together with the seasoning. So I just pop EVERYTHING into the pot, and let it cook.

I used a pressure cooker to cook for about an hour, which is divine as the meat would be sooo tender, even the soft bone turns translucent and delicious and well, soft! For a regular pot, an hour would also be fine, just that you would have to keep an eye on your soup and make sure it doesn't dry up.

Serve with some simple blanched vegetables, steaming hot rice and most importantly, freshly cut chilli padi in dark soya sauce.

YUMS~!

Shanghainese Rice Cake

Also known as Shanhainese Nien Gou, this dish is very close to my heart as my mom would make this on the mornings of chinese new year. So it represents the best years of my childhood and my family. Interestingly, many only know this rice cake for stir-fry or pan-fried. For me, the best way and the only way is to cook it with soup.


1. Soak the nien gou and dried mushroom overnight
2. To make the soup, boil a chicken breast with 2 slices of ginger and mushrooms for 30mins
3. Add chicken wings and chinese cabbage and boil till cooked. Add some salt for seasoning.



4. Cook the nien gou in a seperate pot of water. When the nien gou float to the surface, it's cooked. Careful not to overcook, or it would become mushy!



5. Scoop out the nien gou and ladle the soup and ingredients over it.
6. Serve with a dash of pepper!

Hairy Gourd, Corn and Pork Rib Soup

Being Cantonese, having soup during dinner is very important. My Mommy taught me this recipie, but the original uses hairy gourd, carrots and pork ribs. My hubby loves corn, so I switched the carrots for the corn. Just as sweet!

For a soup that serves 2-3,

1 small hairy gourd (毛瓜)
1 corn
6 pieces of pork ribs
4 pcs of dried dates
4-5 pcs of dried mussels/scallops (optional)

Preparation!

For the gourd:
1. Use the back of your knife and scrape away the hairy skin of the gourd, revealing a light green gourd.
2. Cut and discard both the tail ends of the gourd and cut the rest into equal sized sections.

Corn: Just cut into equal sized sections.



Cooking Time!

1. Put half a pot of water over the fire to boil

2. Before putting the dates into the water, pinch it to crack it open.



3. When the water boils, put in your pork ribs

4. When the water bubbles, add in the corn

5. When the water bubbles, add in the gourd. If available, add in the dried mussels or scallops for extra flavour.

6. Let the soup boil over medium heat until the gourd becomes translucent. Watch the water level of the pot, make sure it doesn't dry out. (If it does - just add water)

7. The longer the soup boils, the tastier it gets!

8. When the gourd becomes translucent and the soup becomes a light brownish/yellowish, add salt (and a pinch of msg - if you like) to taste.



Goes very well with cut chilli padi and soya sauce!

CoCo's Stone Soup

CoCo’s Stone Soup (Serves 2-3 persons)

2 potatoes – skin and cut into small chunks
2 carrots – skin and cut into small chunks
2 medium onions – skin and quarter it
1 tomato – quarter it

1 chicken back bone
1 chicken boneless thigh meat

1. Boil your chicken bone in half a pot of water for about 15mins. It can be chicken bone or pork bone. **
2. Put in the potatoes and carrots and boil until it turns slightly soft
3. When the hard vegetables have turned slightly soft, add in your tomato, onion and chicken thigh meat.
4. Add a pinch of salt and continue boiling till the meat is cooked.
5. When the meat is cooked (5-10mins), remove the meat and chop it up. I fried up some cabbage earlier while the soup is boiling, so I just place the chicken on top of the cabbage and serve.
6. Remove the chicken bone from the soup
7. Taste the soup and flavour accordingly and only if necessary.
8. Serve with rice and cut chilli padi.

** Boiling bones add much more flavour to the soup, which means less salt is needed when flavouring. Boiling the bones instead of the meat would also mean more tender meat.

Why is it called stone soup? There's actually a story behind it. See it here. But mine stone soup has less ingredients... :)