Hua Tan Zhi Ke Cha

Dh came back from Japan and had been coughing badly for more than a week already. He had seen the GP thrice, taken antibiotics, cough mixtures, anti-phlegm medicine, lozenges and all of them don't seem to give him any immediate relief. The cough is really bad ... when he coughs it's as though he is coughing his lungs out and sometimes he retches out all that he had for lunch or dinner which is also not much.

I had a chat with the GP and she said that the kind of viral infection that's going around seems to be another kind that takes a longer time for the body to recover from. Also as we age our immunity is also taking a beating. So it seems the body will also take a longer time to heal.

Since dh's appetite is so poor, I had to cook soups for him. So here I chanced upon this chinese herb soup from Chwee Song which was good for clearing phlegm and for relieving persistent coughs. All I had to do was to empty the entire contents of the package into 500 mls of boiling water and simmer for about an hour to get the soothing soup out. Give it a pinch of salt and dh readily drinks this to get some relief from his wretched cough. I've made this many times now.

Dh is on his way to recovery as I can hear he is coughing less. I'm sure by the end of this week he will be well again.

Carrot, Maize and Tomato Soup

This soup is another of my dd's favourite.
Using 500 g of meat to 1.2 litres of water, I just added 2 nos. tomatoes, quartered ; 1 no. carrot, 1 no. maize and a handful of kei chi with 4 slices of ginger and simmer the pot of ingredients for about 2 hours. Season with a little salt and it tastes yummy.
She even loves eating the meat when they are dipped in black sauce.

Dun Ji Tang Liao

Yes, it was another round of chicken/meat soup with the Chwee Song herbs. This was stated as ingredients to improve health and relieve tiredness. So I simmered a combination of 500 gm of chicken thighs and lean pork meat for 2 hrs with the herbs to get the resulting soup below. It was a rich soup and the soup was tasty enough to drink without adding any salt into it.

Bei Qi Dang Shen Tang

I cooked soup today using the pre-packed herbs from the Chwee Song brand. For the meat, I used 300 gm chicken thighs and 200 gm lean pork meat and simmered them with the herbs for 2 hours covered. This soup is supposedly good for improving health and to get rid of tiredness. It's for dh cos he's been working late for so many weeks already.... sigh!

Drunken Prawn Soup

Friday night, dh and I visited Giant at Tampines and happened to chance upon these fresh prawns. Since it had been quite a while we had eaten prawns, dh mentioned that it would be nice to have them for supper. So here was what I did .....

Boiled about 2 cups of water mixed with 1 cup of Chinese cooking wine. Add 4 pieces of ginger and a handful of kei chee. Process 400 gm of fresh prawns and season it with a tsp of sugar and salt and a little pepper for about half an hour. Once the wine mixture boiled, I threw in the prawns and waited until they all turned orange and ready. This should take about 5-10 minutes.

We had a yummylicious supper of prawns and soup that night :-)

Zi Yin Run Fei Tang

Here's another round of soup for dh who is on his way to recovering from a nasty cough and throat infection. This time the soup was black due to one of the ingredients. This soup was supposed to be good for the recovery of the respiratory tract. Ingredients and instructions were all printed on the back of the packet for easy reference. I boiled the ingredients with lean pork meat for about 2 hrs. and added a little salt to it. I strained the hot soup before giving it to dh. This time round dh enjoyed this soup even better than the last soup I made for him.

Xue Er Run Fei Tang

Last week was a terrible week for dh cos he had been coughing his lungs out due to a throat infection. He self medicated with Manuka honey, Listerine, Strepsils and Robitussin cough mixture for about three days before he decided to see the GP for antibiotics. Now he's definitely coughing less and is on the way to recovery. His appetite is still not very good cos the medicine he is taking sort of wiped out whatever taste sensation he has and everything tasted bland to him.
But he has been asking for soups. So here's what I found at the supermarket ...

Chwee Song's Xue Er Run Fei Tang .... boil these ingredients with chicken for about 2 hrs and drink the soup which is supposed to be good for the lungs and the respiratory tract recovery.

The packet contains sweetened dried figs and dates, sweetened prunes, white fungus and polygonatum odoratum. The result soup is a sweet soup and I added a little salt to enhance the taste. Dh finished up all the soup :-) and even ate the chicken meat.

Fish Soup Stock

I always like to buy a whole Batang fish from the NTUC supermarket and get the lady to fillet it for me. It's a whole lot cheaper getting the fillet this way. Most of the time I would keep the head and bones in the freezer after washing the blood away. After three weeks, I would throw them away. Finally managed to admit that this is such a wasteful act. I asked for a simple fish soup stock recipe at Imperial Kitchen and Chinesecook responded with a simple recipe. I adapted it and here's the result of the simple fish soup stock.

Ingredients:

500 gm fish bones and head, cleaned of blood and washed with salt, pepper and rice vinegar.
10 cloves of garlic, smashed with skin intact.
1 no. thumb sized ginger, sliced.
5 stalks of green onions, cut into 4 cm lengths.
1 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns
1.5 litres hot water

Method:

Heat up 2 tbsp oil and fry ginger, garlic, green onions and peppercorns till fragrant.

Add in the fish bones and head and fry till 3/4 done.

Add in the hot water and let the ingredients boil for about 10 mins.

Turn down the fire and simmer, covered for an hour and a half.

You can see meat coming off the bones and the soup turning a little milky.

Strain the soup with a sieve to remove the bones and ingredients.

Season to taste and the fish soup stock is ready.

(I used the stock and just threw in fish balls, tomatoes, beancurd and some coriander leaves for a meal. I also added blanched Chye Sim into the soup.)

Anything Soup

My friend B shared with me the recipe of her family's favourite soup. It's a refreshing soup using the vege Wong Bok. I did a simplified version of her recipe and the soup tastes just good enough for me.

Ingredients:
200 gm minced meat, season with salt, sugar, pepper, Chinese wine, sesame
oil and corn flour. Roll them into meat balls after half an hour.

1 piece of dried pork skin, blanched and soaked in hot water, shredded.

Half a round of Wong Bok vege, shredded.

1 packet of Fuchou fish ball.

Method:
Fill and pot with about 2 litres of water and let it boil.

Add in the meat balls and Fuchou fish balls and let it cook for about a minute or 2 minutes.

Scoop up the meat/fish balls and set aside.

Add into the boiling soup, the shredded Wong Bok vege and the pig skin and let them boil till vege is cooked.

Return into the pot the meat and fish balls.

Season with a little salt, pepper and sesame oil if you like.

Serve with white rice.

Ikan Bilis Spinach Soup

This is my dd's favourite soup. The funny thing is that she will eat the leaves of the round spinach vege, the fish ball but will not touch the soft bean curd. Now if someone would give me an idea how to make her eat the soft beancurd.

Ingredients:

a handful of ikan bilis, rinsed with water
3 cloves of garlic, smashed and skinned
3 slices of ginger
1 no. tomato, wedged
1 bunch of round spinach, rinsed and plucked
2 nos. preserved plums, squeezed
1 packet of fresh fishballs
1 packet soft beancurd
1.2 litres of water

Method:

Fry the garlic and ginger in 3 tbsp of oil till fragrant.

Add in the ikan bilis and fry for another minute or two.

Pour in the water and let the water in the pot boil for a another minute or two.

Add in the wedged tomatoes and the plums and let the soup simmer for about 45 mins. covered.

Add in the fish balls and after they are cooked, add in the spinach.

Once the spinach is ready, add in the soft beancurd and switch off the fire.

Soothing ...SOUPS

My family is into occasional soup drinking only even though we are Cantonese. The main reason is because I find that after boiling the ingredients for two hours, I've got to throw away the ingredients and it's such a wasteful act. No one in the family likes to eat the boiled meat eventhough I try to entice them to eat the meat by dipping the meat into sauces. So here is sharing the occasional soups that I've made .....


Watercress chicken soup.
This is one of my favourite and dh's too cos I will eat the watercress while dh and dss will eat the chicken. This soup is easy to make......
Boil 1 litre of water in a pot, put in 300 gm of fresh chicken drumsticks (blanched with hot water first). Add 5 slices of old ginger, 8 nos. red dates and a bunch of watercress. Boil and then simmer all together for about two hours. Season with salt according to your taste.


Bak Kut Teh.

I cook this using this brand of seasoning. Just need to follow the instructions given behind the package. This soup, everyone eats the meat cos it requires only 45 mins of preparation time, so the meat still retains it's taste. We like the one with the tradtional taste and usually dip the meat in black soya sauce to eat with white rice. Sometimes the soup also goes into the rice.