Old Cucumber Soup (Lou Wong Kua tong)

Weather seems to be super hot for the pass few days.The chinese believe a body should have a balance of yin and yang . That means with hot weather, our body kind of heaty, best to consume food that will not trigger us of getting fever, sore throat...avoiding deep fried stuff and chilli also. Take some herbal drink...best is not the cold icy water but take warm drinks. Simple drinks can be made at home are barley , chrysanthemum or even Honey.

Well, I decided to make a simple cooling soup..."lou wong kua"...old cucumber soup.Is a cantonese soup.Pretty easy n not complicated. By the way, pregnant moms & ladies having mentrual should avoid this. Pregnant moms should keep the womb warm like u cant take watermelon.

So here's the ingredient for the soup

1 old cucumber. Choose the one that feels heavy in your hand n not the weighing machine. Do a comparison while choosing. Remove the seeds by using a spoon to scrap it. It is believe the seeds will give a bitter & sour taste when u cook it.Wash the skin with a good rub of rough salt.

Some dry scallops. Bought a medium size. Some Yuk Chook  (from chinese medicine shop), red dates without seeds (10 - 15 pcs)

2 Australian carrot as they are sweeter. Chinese carrot are not sweet.

400g of pork's bone "Pai kuat"..wash d bone with salt water. Then boil some water, blanch the bone with boiling water for a minute. You can see dirty scums will float on d water. Drain away the water.Rinse the bone with tap water.





I have also added to piece of chinese pork ham "Kam wah foh tui金华火腿 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinhua_ham " which is salty and fragrant. Great ingredient for making stocks or broth. You may find some people don't add  it cos is hard to find it in M'sia.And only restaurant will use it. Well, I do travel to China and was introduced to this by my ex  boss's wife who is a Shanghainese. Managed to buy from Shanghai, Guangzhou  & Hangzhou also. I don't buy the whole leg but just a cut of it which last me for sometime.

Some people will use dried cuttlefish instead.

Used 1.5 L of water (pls adjust according to the ingredients you have) and add all ingredient inside cold water before boiling them. I use thermal cooker. When I see the water boiling I switch to simmer for 20 - 30 mins. Then put them in the thermal pot. If you dont have, boil them for just 2 hours.

The reason I used thermal pot is less cooking time on the stove and nutrients will retain more with less cooking time and healthier too.

After one hour in the thermal , you may now serve. Add some salt to taste. Anyway, since i add in chinese ham, no salt or sugar needed.As it is.Bon Apetite!

Homemade Pork Dumpling (Wan Ton)

Ever wonder you could do it yourself at home and you could include any fillings (be it pork, chicken, beef or mutton)..well up to you.

The good thing about wanton is I can make a lot and keep them in the freezer. And use them to cook instant soup with some vege, deep fried it as snacks or add into our instant noodle, it can be dry or soup instant noodle.

Here's the recipe.

100g of wanton skin (can get it from wet market or in Supermarket but I prefer wet market cos is freshly made skin)
300g of mince lean meat (your choice, I don't eat fats.If you choose pork, you may use skinless pork belly or leg tendersiden and mince it yourself. If lazy, you may purchase ready mince meat however I hardly buy those cos I have no idea what kind of meat has been included)
1 onion - tiny dice and stir fry with oil till transparent & fragrant. leave it aside to cool down
15 pcs of prawn - cut into dice
5 pcs - waterchestnut (just buy from the fruit seller which they peeled, easy not need to peel yourself. Then chopped it)
3Tblsp of soya sauce
4 tbsp - Lee kum Kee superior oyster sauce (different brand has different taste)
1 cap of Hua Tiao wine
1tbsp if corn flour
dashes of Ghee Hiang Sesame seed oil (other brand don't seem that fragrant)
dashes of pepper
chop spring onion

METHODS

Mix all the above ingredients together in a big bowl and let it marinade in the fridge for 4 hrs. However do taste it whether is tasty enough.

Then take a bit of the mixture, put it on the centre of wanton skin. Close it up . Make it into triangle shape. Put both end angle together and you will get a sort of rose bud. To seal the angle, use some water. Set aside for those you want to cook immediate and the rest can be kept in the freezer.However, do divide them first of how many pcs you want to use or else it will be hard for you to get them separate when they are all stick together.

For soup wanton.

Use Maggi chicken cube stock or you may use real ikan bilis stock to make the soup. (500ml of water). Let it boil then put it the wanton (up to you to use how many pieces), then when is ready all wanton will float. Add in Vege (yaw mak), dash of pepper,hua tiao wine ,sesame oil and deep fried garlic

Deep Fried Wanton

Kiam Chai Teng - Salted Vege Soup

This is another one of my favourite soup during Chinese New Year. A very apetising soup cos is sourish . Here's another recipe from mom and I love the way she do it.

Ingredient

3L of water
300g salted vege from wet market (washed & tear into pcs)
4 bigTomatoes (cut into halves)
3 onions (peeled & cut into halves)
6 pcs tofu (cut into 4 pcs & to be added last)
1 nutmeg seed or buah pala (can get from Indian mamak shop)
3 star anise (bunga cengkih)
2 cinamon stick (kayu manis)
1/2 kg of pork ribs for soup
1/2 bird of duck (optional)

Method
Here's a secret.In order to make your soup clear & not dirty, dip your meat into a hot boiling water for 5 min. U can see a lot of dirty stuff floating at the top of the water & also the fats/oil. Take the meat out & wash with runing water (tap)

Put all ingredient into soup pot (except tofu) & boil for 3 hrs . Allow the soup to boild for 30 min high fire (this will extract all the goodness from all ingredient into the boiling water) then later change to low fire to boild for another 2 1/2 hrs. Put in the tofu when u are ready to serve the soup , just boil it for another 5 min.

If u have a good pressure cooker, boil the soup for only 45 min. Do not open the lid immediately after 45 min.Read your mannual.You must allow the internal pressure to go down before opening the cover.

Some of you may not like Star anise & cinamon stick- you may skip this