Leek and Potato Soup

Winter has begun in it's full force. Two weeks ago, I came back to Artic condition here. The maximum temperature hardly rose above 0deg C. This is cold, very cold. However, I still continue to cycle to work even in this cold.

After cycling back from the cold condition outside, it's always inviting to have winter warming soup, which I call comfort soup. My diet these days are incline towards soup and broth as it's easy to prepare and can be kept for a week in the fridge. I'll introduce you to leek and potato soup being the seasonal ingredients readily available now.

Leek and potato soup
Ingredients (serves 4)

• 2 large leeks - chopped
  
• 2 large potatoes (about 300 gm)- cubed
  
• 1 litre of vegetable stock/chicken stock
• 1 large white onion-chopped
• 150 ml double cream
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in a pot, add onion, leeks and potatoes and let it sweat for around 5 minutes. Stir continuosly.
2. Then pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper. Turn the heat to low and continue to simmer until the vegetables become tender.
   
3. Using a hand blender, blend until smooth. Then stir in the cream, off the heat.
4. Served hot.

Trust me, this is really easy, comforting for a cold winter's supper and tasty. I find that the soup taste even better the next day. This soup can be easily kept up to a week in the fridge.

Dusting of first snow of this winter season

Comforting Mushroom Soup

At times, I'm busy with other stuff that I will try to make simple dish in a jiffy. Here is one good example, this mushroom soup is fulfilling and comforting for a cold winter day and it's so easily made. I don't buy Campbell Mushroom Soup any longer since I discover the fuss free homemade mushroom soup making . Homemade fresh mushroom soup is so flavorful and fresh. Moreover, mushrooms are brimming with protein, Vit B and minerals. They're low in calories and may have antibacterial substances to help the body. This soup can be incorporated as a starter as well.

Mushroom Soup
Ingredients (serve 4-5 persons)

• 500 gm closed cup mushroom- chopped
  
• 800-1000 ml of vegetable/chicken stock (if you want thicker soup use less stock)
  
• 1 big onion-chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic-finely chopped
• 90 gm butter
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1/2 cup single cream
• salt & pepper to taste

1. Heat a pan, once hot, melt the butter, add in chopped onion and garlic. Turn to medium heat to sweat the onion and garlic till soft. It takes approximately five minutes.
   
2. Add in the chopped mushroom and cook for about 3-5 minutes. Add in the flour to coat well the mushroom, continue to stir. Then add in the stock and throw in the bay leaf.
3. Bring it to small boil and let it simmer for further 10minutes. Remove the bay leaf thereafter. Use a hand blender to blend to your require consistency.
4. Off the heat. Add in the cream and stir. Serve hot with some bread. Drizzle some cream over the soup to garnish. Add your salt and pepper to your taste.

This soup can be kept in container in the fridge and kept well over one week. You can heat up when required. Warming winter soup......

Radish Soup

Weather is cold outside, feels like winter now. I already started to do some aerobics exercise to keep warm and importantly to stay fit and healthy [ I don't want to accumulate winter fats] .
I hope my zeal and enthusiasm would not fizzles out quickly [ hangat hangat tahi ayam ] :-) .
Of course after exercising, I always go for a nice hot bath to unwind. After the bath I felt like having a warm and hearty soup.....how cosy is that?
I tend to cook Cantonese soup whenever possible. I could still vividly remember having a hot bowl of radish soup at my aunt Madeline's house many years ago. I noticed that she used dry squid to enhance the tastiness of the soup. That's yummy. Cantonese people take great pride in preparing their soup as it nourishes the body, a meal would not be complete without the soup.

Radish soup
Ingredients

• 500 gm Chinese white radish (I use peppery radish-Western radish)
• 300 gm of pork rib/chicken thigh
• 2 medium dry squid
• old ginger-thumb size-sliced thinly
  
• 1tsp white pepper
• dash of salt
• 1 litre of water
• corriander for garnishing
  

1. Peel the radish, if you're using the Chinese radish cut into bite size chunks. For the western radish, just peel the skin [quote : hardwork to peel the skin of the small size radishes]
2. Wash and remove the backbone of the dry squid. Let it soak for 10minutes to soften. Slice into thin strip.
   
3. Put chicken thigh, squid, radish, ginger and water and bring to boil. Lower the heat and let it simmer on low heat for 2 hours.
4. Then add dash of salt and pepper to taste.
5. Served hot.
   

Dry squid

Sweet Corn Soup

I think this soup is kind of originated from Chinese takeaway in UK. I hardly remembered having this soup back home except in MOS burger outlets. It is actually quite simple to prepare and nice as well.

Sweet Corn Soup
Ingredients (served 2)

• 500ml chicken stock
• 1/2 chicken breast meat - diced to small cube
• 300 gm sweet corn kernel from can
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 1 tbsp corn starch added with 2 tbsp water
• white pepper
• 1/2 tsp of sugar
• 1 tbsp soya sauce or salt to taste
  
• spring onion for garnishing (optional)

1. Bring to boil the chicken stock, add in sweet corn kernel and chicken meat.
2. Once chicken meat is cook, quickly add in the sugar, soya sauce, sesame oil and mix well.
3. Then add the corn starch mix and stir. At this point your soup should be a little thicken.
4. Add in the beaten egg and stir quickly till egg is cook. Off heat.
5. Put in a bowl and drizzle some white pepper with spring onion. Served hot.

Here's my Dutch Iris blooming in late April.....

Chicken with ginseng soup

To the Chinese ginseng is used widely in TCM. Many deemed it as wonder herb to prolong longevity. For me, my mom used to brew this soup before the main exams. She said ginseng will boost my energy and least likely to become tired after long hours of revisions. Indeed. Many As' to prove that :-). But I drink this soup to warm up for cold winter nowdays, no more exams to attend to.

Chicken with ginseng soup
Ingredients (2 persons)

• 4 chicken legs
• 10 gm ginseng
• 1 tbsp of goji berry
• 1½ litres (6 cups) water
• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1. In a large heat-proof bowl, place the chicken together with all the other ingredients except the salt. Steam in a steamer or big pot over boiling water for 2 hours, constantly replenishing the water in the steamer or big pot as needed. Remove from the heat, stir in the salt and serve hot. This is known as double boil method.

Traditinal Chinese Medicine(TCM)

I have had incidents when walking around Cambridge, I've been approached by strangers thought that I am Korean, my neighborhood kids thought I am Japanese, people at work thought I'm from mainland China, only people who knows me knew that I'm a true bred Malaysian Chinese.
Having said that, I'm close to what is known as "banana Chinese". Hope not :-)
At least from gastronomy point of view, I'm quite rooted to Chinese origin. I'm introduced to traditional Chinese herbs since young, especially my mom is a stern believer of TCM. She used to brew TCM soup of all kind, i.e soup for strengthening brain power before big exams, soup for strengthening one immune system, soup for strengthening this and that. Some are tasty(esp those with Chinese herbs) and some are awful(especially involving some dry insects....eeks). Even nowdays when I called back home, she reminded me to make TCM soup since winter months just around the corner.
So I decided to make Ching Po Leung Soup(清補凉). In Cantonese, the meaning of ching are pure, clean, and clear; while po can mean repair, patch, mend, and nutritious. Leung means either cool or cold. Taken together, the overall meaning is a cooling, nutritious tonic to clean and repair the body. Ching Po Leung is purported to be good for the stomach, spleen and lungs, it's also said to reduce phlegm.



In this soup(Ching Po Leung) the main ingredients:

• Chinese Yam(20gm)-nourishes the spleen, stengthen the lungs, reinforces the kidneys and replenishes vital essence
• Lily Bulb(20gm)-nourishes the yin and the lungs. Soothes coughing
• Dry longan(30gm)-replenishes the heart and the spleen, enriches vital energy and the blood, tranquilizes the mind
• White fungus(20gm)-nourishes the yin and the lungs. Strengthens the stomacand quenches thirst.
• Solomon's seal(20gm)-nourishes vital essence, relieves anxiety and quenches thirst.
• Lotus seed(20gm)-strengthens the spleen and promotes appetite.
• Euryale(20gm)-reinforces the kidneys and invigorates vital esence, strengthens the spleen and relieves diarrhea
• Pearl barley(20gm)-strengthen the spleen and induces diuresis
• Rock sugar (30gm)
  
• Pork rib ( 400gm)
  

Method

1. Bring to slow boil all ingredients with pork rib with 7 bowls of water.
2. Simmer for 2-3 hours.
3. Add salt to taste and add a bit of rock sugar
4. Served with rice or drink on its own.

Soupy Nite

It's again another chilly evening, plus high force wind in full action outside. Not a pleasant nite to venture out. Better wrapped out warm, settled in with a nice book and listening to "pleasant to the ear" music or better still blogging in my very own corner of Apron's Delight.
Tonite I'm gonna make water cress with pork belly soup. I love this soup so much. For the past few nites I had cough occasionally. My mom had this remedy if I remembered correctly. She used to make them quite often when we had free supply of water cress from our next door neighbor. My mom used to patiently cook them over charcoal fire, simmering it slowly for hours. The longer you simmer , the tender the pork belly is and the goodness of water cress dissolves into the soup she said.
This easy to make and tasty soup is loaded with nutrition (esp iron & vitamins) . It is deemed to have the ability to detoxify the lungs[note good for heavy smokers & those suffering from being a second hand smoker, I'm neither of those ;-)] . The water cress also has a cooling property to it. It can be a cooling soup in the summer(add more water cress to it). In the colder days we can elliminate the water cress cooling property by reducing the amount of water cress used and simmered it longer~5hours on low heat. This is rather a simple soup but yet so satisfying, simplicity is the best policy, don't you agree.

Water cress and pork belly soup

Ingredients

good for 2 persons

• 300gm pork belly
• 170gm of water cress (this is for autumn days)
  
• 6 red dates-pitted
• 1 litre water
• 1 small slow cooker

Put all the ingredient into the slow cooker, bring to a boil and let it simmer on low heat for at least 4 hours. This is soup is very tasty and can be served with rice. You can dip the pork belly into light soya sauce+minced garlic+lemon juice+birdeye chillis.

I just had mine.......waiting for miracle to happen, cough will go away tonite.....