Recipe trial: Trio Quick Soup - Cilantro/Coriander + Beancurd + Century Egg

I was looking for more inspirations to making quick soups (since I am getting lazier to wake up early to prepare stewed soups). I came across this recipe that promotes body fluid and expel heat during the hot seasons.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of cilantro/coriander (cut into 2 cm length)
1 packet of beancurd (or 2 pieces, if you are buying from the market)
1 century egg (quartered)
1 bunch of dried anchovies

Optional ingredients:
1 small bowl of minced pork (seasoned with sesame oil, soy sauce and corn starch)

Steps:

1. Boil the anchovies
2. Dump all the ingredients in and let it boil for 10-20 minutes
3. When the anchovies flavour is released, use a spoon to scoop the minced meat to bite size and drop into the soup
4. Let the soup simmer until the meat is thoroughly cooked.
5. Serve

Quick and tasty as the ingredients goes well with each other.

Recipe: Cabbage Soup to warm the body and cleanse the heat

I have just discovered that cabbage has huge recovery properties in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) context.

The benefits include:

1. Moisten the intestines and prevent constipation
2. Improve circulation and alleviate joint pain
3. Clear toxins and good for skin

I decided to cook this for family dinner:

Ingredients

• 1 head of chinese cabbage (some also call nappa cabbage) - torn to bite size pieces
• 1 chicken bones
• 1 head of dried cuttlefish
• 1-2 thumb of ginger, smashed
• Red dates, stoned
• 1 grasp of wolfberries (goji berries)

1. I prefer to tear the vege instead of cutting as tearing will maintain higher moisture content of the vegetables
2. Cover the chicken bones and cuttlefish with water and put to boil
3. Put in the red dates, ginger and cabbage
4. Once the soup came to boil, lower the temperature to let it simmer until the water reduce by 1/3
5. Switch to fire to high, put in salt to taste and wolfberries (If you put wolberries too early, it will turn sour)

The kids finished 2 big bowls full of vegetables. 

Satisfied

Recipe: 2 Dishes 1 Soup (2D1S)

Sometimes I do not have enough time in the morning to prepare for double-boiled or stewed soup. So I have to come up with variety of quick soups. This is one of those..

Easy Chinese Spinach Soup

Ingredients:

• A bunch of chinese spinach
• A grasp of dried anchovies
• A thumb of ginger, smashed
• A carrot
• 1-2 tofu
• A grasp of wolfberries

1. Put anchovies, ginger and carrot in 1 litre of water and bring to boil
2. Put in tofu
3. Once the carrot has soften, put in the vegetables stem first, followed by the leaves (so the leaves wont be too mushy)
4. Finally, put in the wolfberries and salt to taste 

Easy Peasy Steamed Minced Pork with Salted Egg

• Minced pork 150 gram or about 3/4 cup
• 1 salted egg

1. Mixed the meat and the egg
2. Steam on top of cooking rice

Easy Stir-fry Chives with Prawns

• A bunch of chives, dice/julienne (cut into small sizes like the picture)
• 10 prawns (as you like)
• A thumb of sliced ginger

1. Marinate the prawn with sugar and placed in fridge for half hour to make it crunchy.You can ignore this step if it is real fresh.
2. Fry ginger in minimum oil, dump in the prawn and the chives. Stir, stir, stir... Done!