Chinese bone broth Archives - As Suanie Sees It

Recipe: Salted Vegetable and Tofu Soup

April 29, 2015 By Suanie 2 Comments

One of my favourite soups is also the easiest and fastest to cook. It takes just one hour and 6 ingredients to make a large pot of delicious Salted Vegetable and Tofu Soup.

The only hazard in making this soup is, uh… To cut a long, sad story short, I do not recommend slicing slippery salted vegetables with a sharp Zwilling knife when you’re in a hurry. Not if you like all your fingernails intact 😛

… that’s it. There are no other stories related to this Chinese pot of deliciousness. It’s bursting with simmered bone broth goodness, marked with a satisfying saltiness that pairs great with soft tofu.

Also, the ability to whip up such simple home-cooking makes you look like a kitchen goddess because it reminds people of family. True story.

AND being thought of as a goddess of any kind is one of the most absurd, yet strangely appealing feelings ever. You should try it once in a while.

So make this soup already!

… Wait wait, a few more notes to share:

… On the bones, use chicken if you can’t or don’t like pork.
… On salted vegetables, it’s pickled/salted mustard greens that looks like this *click*. Wet markets will have them, some hypermarkets may not carry them. There are many kinds of salted vegetables, remember it’s the “wet” one.
… On tofu, use firm or pressed tofu. Eat tofu, it’s good for you!
… On ginger: I buy a big one, slice it up and freeze the rest. I don’t use ginger all the time, and it is wasteful to buy when you only need a little.

Frozen ginger slices at my convenience!

Okay, NOW let’s get to it:

1) Blanch 300g pork/chicken bones in a pot of boiling water. This removes the scum.

2) Remove and transfer to another pot of water with a couple ginger slices. Let it come to a boil, then simmer for 30 – 40 minutes.

3) Use this time to slice up a packet of salted vegetables (cut it however you like to eat it), 2 tomatoes and a box of tofu. Personally I like everything bite-size. Watch out for your fingernails.

4) Put in salted vege and tomatoes to cook for 10 mins. If you want a saltier taste, this is when you put in a pickled plum. I find it unnecessary.

5) In the last 5 mins, put in tofu and let it simmer before serving. If you’re using prawns and/or meat slices, this is the time to put it in.

Ta-dah, a nice bowl of Chinese soup ready to be consumed, nom nom nom nom… Go on, make soup and let your domestic goddess shineeeeeeee!

(Ingredients and method all above. I’ll update again with Printable Recipe when the plugin decides to work again)

2 Comments Filed Under: Eating In, Recipes Tagged With: Chinese bone broth, chinese soup recipe, easy chinese soup, recipe tofu soup

Recipe: Chinese ABC Soup

December 3, 2014 By Suanie 13 Comments

In my increasingly limited spare time, I find myself wondering: who first made ABC soup, and why the heck did they call it the ABC soup??

A typical Chinese ABC soup contains meat (either pork or chicken), onions, carrots, tomatoes and potatoes. The recipe is flexible so you can add an assortment of ‘related’ goodies – sweetcorn, dried scallops, dried oysters, red dates, goji berries, Chinese (napa) cabbage, meatballs etc. All these extra ingredients are to encourage the natural sweetening and flavouring of the soup.

So where’s the A, B and C?

On the Internet, some people claim that it’s called ABC soup due to vitamins A, B and C from the vegetables. Others say because it’s easy to make, as easy as ABC.

So no one knows. Fine, I guess it doesn’t really matter, so long we can keep making and enjoying this light, nutritious deliciousness. I also need to think about other things in my spare time.

By the way the first vitamin was discovered in the year 1910. This means vitamins aren’t part of traditional Chinese medicinal and healing concepts. Okay I’ll stop now!!

Indeed, the Chinese ABC soup is ridiculously easy to make. So long you have the ingredients, a stove and 3 hours to spare, you are in for a treat!

Chinese ABC soup with a lot of ingredients, because I can.

Here’s how you do it the extravagant, Suanie-way in the following order:

Core Stuff:
– 3 litres water
– 300-400g pork/chicken bones/meat
Optional:
– 6-8 dried red dates
– 6-8 dried scallops
– 6-8 dried oysters

Blanch bone/meat in boiling water to remove scum. Remove, and place in 3 litre water along with the optional ingredients. Let boil then simmer for 30 minutes.

Main Vege:
– 2 carrots, peeled and cut into rough chunks
– 1 potato, peeled and cut to chunks
– 2 tomatoes, quartered
– 1 large onion, quartered
– 1 sweet corn, cut to chunks
– 1/2 of a whole garlic bulb
– some whole white peppercorn
Optional:
– a handful of goji berries, mmmm

Dump into pot and let simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Secret Kicks:
– Some Chinese napa cabage, cut to chunks
– Fuzhou meatballs, yummmmm!

Put in Chinese napa cabbage in the final 30 minutes, and the meatballs in the final 5-10 minutes. Add salt to taste, but we don’t usually do that as the soup is so flavourful by now.

This recipe serves 4 – 6 people. If you’ve made too much ABC soup and are bored by it, try this trick that my grandmother taught me:

Blended Chinese ABC Soup

Remove all meats. Don’t want them by now. Strip corn from cob (if there are any left), and together with the rest of the remaining vegetables and soup, BLEND!

… in a blender, of course…

Then add salt and black pepper, and you have Chinese ABC Soup with a twist!

Enjois.

13 Comments Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: Chinese bone broth, chinese soup recipe, easy chinese soup

Recipe: Old Cucumber Soup

November 25, 2014 By Suanie 5 Comments

The saying “Old is Gold” is exemplified in a hearty pot of Chinese-style old cucumber soup. This humble vegetable with its seemingly dried-out, dark yellow/brown wrinkly skin (like how mine will be when I’m 80) is a secret Chinese cooling weapon. It’s a Yin ingredient, used to help cool down your body when it’s ‘heaty’.

Yes I know cucumbers are categorically fruits. There are more interesting things to argue about.

More importantly, this soup reminds me of home – warm, nourishing and loving. Hold on, I’m feeling my Mom bursting with pride here… 😛

My Mom doesn’t skimp on soup ingredients. She uses good stuff and would put in more than necessary (e.g. more pork bones for a really rich, filling soup flavour). The end result is very telling, and I’ve learned from my Mom to go all out for a bowl of good soup.

Here’s my Mom’s recipe for Old Cucumber soup with pork ribs. For halal-friendly friends, substitute with chicken bones and bits. Full recipe at the bottom of the post.

Have these dry ingredients ready: a whole bulb of garlic, a handful of dried scallops, a few red dates, a few pieces of dried oyster, and a piece of dried cuttlefish (optional).

Get a medium-sized old cucumber. Wash and scrub the skin clean. Cut into half, remove the seeds, cut into smaller slices.

I use about 300g to 400g of pork bone + soft ribs (yun guat). Even though the pork ribs would have not much flavour left, I still enjoy gnawing on the soft bones. You can use any types of pork bone for soup.

To clean the pork bone+ribs and scum, put them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes. Remove the bones, put aside, and throw out the water.

Fill a pot with water, dump in all your ingredients: dry ingredients, pork bone and old cucumber. How much water? Enough to fill your pot, not too much that it’d overflow.

Okay, slightly more than 2 litres of water.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 2 hours. If I have the time, I’d leave it on for 3.

When it’s ready to be served, the soup is thick, hearty and slightly mushy from the flesh of old cucumber. We don’t usually add in salt as the ingredients give so much flavour to the soup. If you’d like to add a bit of salt, do it before serving.

And… nom!

Recipe: Old Cucumber Soup + Ribs Soup

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Yield: 4 to 6

Recipe: Old Cucumber Soup + Ribs Soup

Ingredients

1 old cucumber, medium size

300g to 400g pork bones/ ribs/ chicken bones (more for chicken)

2 to 2.5 litres of water

1 whole garlic bulb

6 - 8 dried oysters

6 - 8 dried scallops

6 - 8 red dates

1 piece dried cuttlefish (optional)

Salt to taste (optional)

Instructions

Clean old cucumber, remove seeds. Slice half, length-wise. Cut into smaller slices.
In a small pot of boiling water, put in pork bones for a few minutes. Remove and put aside, discard water.
In a pot of water, put in all ingredients (except for salt). Bring to boil and simmer for at least 2 hours.
Add salt to taste, if necessary.
Serve with a side of Zhang Yimou.

http://www.suanie.net/2014/11/recipe-old-cucumber-soup/

5 Comments Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: Chinese bone broth, chinese soup recipe, recipe lao huang gua