Simple Oxtail Soup

My husband loves this version of oxtail soup 🙂  So I thought I’d share this recipe on my blog. It’s not an original recipe as I lifted it from another blog but I’ve innovated it and make little changes here and there.  I’ll type it out from memory to see if I can remember… it’s really very simple.  I bought the oxtails from the supermarket, there are usually six pieces.  Some of the pieces are really small but they are really bone sucking delicious (oops does that sound a tad offensive?!)  The only downside of this soup is that its a little too oily after the boiling is done and dusted, after 2 hours.  I think it comes from the oxtails.  So I try to scoop the top layer of oil out and cook something else in it.  Last night I used the oil to fry the onions and garlic for lamb curry.

You need
6 – 8 pieces of oxtails
1 clove garlic
1 onion diced
5-6 or 6-8 tomatoes (diced) or tinned tomatoes
1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste
Beef stock or water
White wine or if you’re preggers like me, I added a splash or two splashes of apple cider vinegar (which is also a good substitute to wine) to tease out the bone minerals
200 ml of cream
A bunch of coriander roughly chopped

Method

1. Dice onion, garlic and tomatoes (I just put them in a blender and blend blend blend!)
2. Coat oxtails in flour and brown them in some oil, take them out or leave them in if you like
3. Add onions and garlic and fry until fragrant, then add oxtails back in again (because sometimes the oxtails stick to the bottom of the pan like mine did when browning them, and it’s hard frying the onion and garlic when that happens)
4. Add tomatoes and tomato paste
5. Add some stock or water until it just covers the oxtails or as necessary

Boil for 2 and a half hours.  Finally, add cream and boil for a little while more… and you can either puree the soup or serve as is with the chopped coriander, which is what I did 🙂

Dong Quai Chicken Congee (Porridge)

Dong quai is a chinese herb that is said to be beneficial to health.  It’s easy to google ‘dong quai’ and you can find ton of information about the properties of the herb and its positive effects on women’s and men’s health.  Generally, it is said dong quai is beneficial for women’s menstrual health and men’s fertility.  It also detoxifies the blood as a ‘blood mover’ in traditional chinese medicine (TCM) terminology.  My mother used to boil dong quai herb pieces in chicken soup.  She would add a piece of chicken thigh or drumstick skin removed and add pieces of dong quai, and boil everything in the slow cooker for hours.  Add salt last before serving to balance out the bitterness of the herb.  I like the smell of dong quai and the warm comforting soup.  I have since adapted her version of cooking dong quai.  I cook pieces of dong quai in chicken porridge.  In this post, I use porridge and congee interchangeably.  Generally congee is thickened porridge cantonese style.  Normal porridge in my household is rice in water with the rice pieces still intact.  Whereas in congee, the rice pieces are smashed up to create a consistent thickened broth.  Here is how I cook dong quai as a heart warming  meal.  

Porridge
Using a rice cooker with a porridge or ‘congee’ function
Wash one cup of rice.  Add some sesame oil and leave for awhile.
Boil water.
Add 3-4 pieces of garlic peeled to the rice cooker with the wash rice in sesame oil.
Add sliced ginger (optional)
Diced carrot (optional)
Pour boiled hot water until the rice cooker pot is 3/4 full or slightly more than half depending on how thick you like your congee/porridge.  I find adding hot water to the rice cooker hastens the cooking of porridge.  Normally we get home quite late from work and it takes at least an hour to cook congee until the consistency we like.  If you use cold water, it will take at least 1 1/2 to 2 hours on my rice cooker.

Add dong quai pieces – nowadays I add 8-10 small pieces because I have a lot of them left over.  Be careful because they will make the porridge taste bitter.  If you don’t like the bitterness of the dong quai, add less like 2-3 pieces. Click on ‘congee’ function to cook.   

Chicken
Always parboil the chicken thighs in boiling water for 5-6 minutes (my mother would say 10 minutes) to remove bone marrow and the grey-ish stuff!  I do that while the  rice cooker is set to ‘congee’ function.  Just to save time.  After the pot is boiling, remove water and rinse chicken briefly under tap water.
Add chicken pieces to the rice cooker.  The chicken will turn out to be really tender in the porridge.  Feel free to use chicken breast pieces too.  My partner likes thighs.  He says thighs are more tender!   With chicken breast I normally remove the chicken halfway and shred the breasts into thin long pieces with a fork.  This is to create a restaurant style feel to the congee 🙂  

Additional ‘goodies’
I like to add goji berries to the porridge.  I will use the hot water (from above) to soften the goji berries while the porridge is cooking.  So add hot water to a handful of goji berries in a bowl.  Leave for 40 minutes.  Then drain the water and add the berries to the congee midway.  You should also take the opportunity to give the porridge a stir.  I sometimes add chopped square pieces of firm tofu to the congee or stir in an egg.  My partner and I love to have our congee with fried ikan bilis which we bring over from Singapore.  Recently I introduced him to preserved olive which you can get at the supermarket.  On days we like to treat ourselves, I would crack open a salted egg to go with the congee.  I have to warn you that eating too much preserved foods are generally not good for health.  When the porridge is cooked to the consistency you like, which is usually after 1 hour, add salt to taste.  I sometimes add salt even before that when the porridge is midway cooking.  Most of the time when I am in a hurry to have dinner, I don’t wait until the rice cooker function turns green or shows it is ready.  I just check on the porridge after an hour because I know it will be more or less done.  

OK I don’t have a picture of the congee I made last night but I will take a picture next time!   I hope you enjoy this fabulous recipe adaptation.  

 

Chinese pork ribs and watercress soup

Chinese watercress and pork ribs soup or ‘sai yong choi tong’

I had a craving this afternoon for this special soup.  Googled it and found out that it is actually a healthy dish!!  It is supposed to be ‘cooling’.  According to Chinese belief, this means reducing the heat, or in my local slang ‘heatiness’, in your body.  So if you have a fever, drinking /eating ‘cooling’ stuff will be beneficial as they lower the temperature in your body.  It’s a yin and yang thing.  Anyway tired of staring at my screen with no real inspiration and exhausted after lunch and too much coffee and tea combined, I drove myself to the nearest Asian supermarket to buy the necessary ingredients.  Red dates are sweet so they will make the soup sweet and add flavour.  I also found a few other ‘treasures’ at the supermarket.. but that’s a story for another post.  You should be able to find these dates in the soup/herbs aisle at the Asian supermarket.  And, you should be able to obtain all of these ingredients at the Asian supermarket.  I am marvelled what they offer – so many local delights such as frozen prata, salted duck egg, preserved olives, chicken rice paste… and more! I found watercress at a fruit and veg store outside of Coles.  In western culture, watercress is usually consumed in salads.  In this particular Chinese dish, it is boiled and consumed in soup.  It tastes fresh and crunchy to the bite.  Not bitter at all. For the pork bones/ribs or chicken bones necessary to create the soup, you can get this at the butcher or from the normal supermarket such as Woolworths.  Nowadays bags of soup bones are sold for less than $5.

Ingredients:

1.5 litres water thereabouts
400g chicken or pork bones/spare-ribs, cut into 3cm pieces – I used pork bones!
8-10 red dates, pitted or not
4-5 honey dates or dried logan dates (optional)
250g watercress after picking
3/4 Goji beans – Chinese believe goji beans are good for improving eyesight!!
5-6 Ginseng pieces (optional)
Salt to taste

 

Method:

1. Wash the watercress and soak for about 15 minutes in salt water. This removes most of the grit and slugs – it’s an aquatic plant – if any. Pluck into 3cm lengths, with the stems and discard any tough stems.

2. Blanch the pork bones or chicken in rapid boiling water for 5 minutes. This step is necessary to remove the white fatty deposits on the meat.

3. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add blanched pork bones and dates to the soup. Let it simmer for 30 to 60 minutes.

4. Finally, add the watercress into the soup and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes. (It is important to add in the watercress later, otherwise it will disintegrate into the soup.)

5. Serve soup warm.  Soup should taste slightly sweetish and saltish.  I added quite a lot of salt to enhance the savoury aspect.

For those of you who know how sai yong choi tong tastes like… I am telling you it tastes exactly, if not better (because you made it yourself!), like what you would order in the restaurant!  I have to say that this endeavour is a huge success!  I distinctly remember when my parents would take my sister and I out for dinner at a chinese restaurant and we would order this soup.  When I brought my partner to Singapore last December, he ordered this soup at one of the up and coming Xiao Long Bao fast food restaurants.  It immediately brought back fond memories of my childhood days with my parents and this particular soup… I’m not sure if many of you are aware… that there’s something about Chinese soups that warm the heart and are comforting for the soul in challenging times.  Whenever I am in need of some comfort to help me across the next few days that I know are going to be trying… I always subconsciously think of comfort home foods such as chicken soups, chicken porridge/congee.. the familiar and the warming – to stir up memories of home just for a little while.

Boil for 30-60 minutes

Add watercress for 20 mins

Finished product - success is mine!

 

Ingredients:

1.5 litres water

400g chicken meat or spare-ribs, cut into 3cm pieces

1 tablespoon chicken stock granules

¼ teaspoon pepper

8 red dates, pitted

 

250g watercress after picking

Salt to taste

 

Method:

1. Wash the watercress and soak for about 15 minutes in salt water. This removes most of the grit and slugs, if any. Pluck into 3cm lengths, with the stems and discard any tough stems.

2. Blanch the pork bones or chicken. This step is necessary to remove the white fatty deposits on the meat.

3. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add blanched pork bones and dates to the soup. Let it simmer for 30 minutes.

4. Finally, add the watercress into the soup and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes. (It is important to add in the watercress later, otherwise it will disintegrate into the soup.)

5. Serve soup warm.

 

Lovely weather for soups comfort food cooking

Lovely weather for soups comfort food cooking

Oh yes.  For all Sydneysiders, it has been a rainy two weeks since summer has long gone and dusted.  Oh woe is us who do not yet know how to make comforting home-style hearth-warming soups to keep the hubbies happy and filled!  I’m kidding.  To be sure, soups are for everyone!  But nothing fills my hubby with more satisfaction than bacon.  This said, I am going to embark on a quest for ‘ham hock’, whatever that is.  Research online says that ham hocks are taken from the front section legs of the pig and are ideal for seasoning and cooking with vegetables, in crock pots to produce flavoursome soups and they go very well with peas.  Alright, I can’t wait to try this recipe but first I have to visit our local butcher.

Sickies

I have been so so sick my friends.  Last Sunday I was plunged into the Land of the Sick.  I was suddenly brought down with severe chills which caused me to shake and tremble my insides and outsides; and a deadening fever which threatened to burst my eyeballs and frontal skull.  Whenever I coughed or sneezed, my skull vibrates.  Whichever I turn my head  to sleep, my head burns with fury.  I don’t know what has brought on this horrible sickness.  It could be either the readymade risotto or the McDonalds chicken burger I had that weekend.  To compound matters, it was the ANZAC day long weekend !!!!  So no pharmacies or clinics were open until Tuesday.  So suffer I did!  Eventually when I did get my sorry arse to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon, he booked me in for an urgent ultrasound the next day.  I went for an utrasound scan of my insides which supposedly found nothing – Thank God.  The experience ws horrendous.  He prodded painfully around my stomach saying that I am an unusual case because he could find nothing wrong and as he had to scan a full bladder, I was instructed to drink lots of water but I could not keep the water down without vomitting after about four cups which made him very frustrated.  I had fasted 6 hours the night before according to the nurse’s instructions to have the ultrasound done on the rest of the organs.  My fiance came just in time to take me for some lunch which I could not eat more than a few bitefuls of spaghetti bolognese.  Managed to drink down a glass of cranberry lemonade.  Could not touch my lychee milkshake for some reason.  Anyway eventually I made it back to the doctor who thinks it is an infection, something like food poisoning but they don’t know for sure.  He gave me antibiotics.  I am feeling abit better today living on Panadeine in the last few days and soupy meals.  I have absolutely no appetite which is rare for me.  Not all bad things have bad consequences.  As a result of my prolonged incapacity, my fiance has learnt how to cook chicken porridge, chicken soup and even chicken tajine!  This is a magnificent achievement.  Although I haven’t been able to get any appetite back I hope I do get better soon because being sick really sucks. 

Mushroom Soup

I was surfing around this afternoon and found this blog which offers an interesting, delectable looking, appetising mushroom soup recipe: Chunky Cream of Mushroom Soup. 

 

my bowl of creamy mushroom soup

 

I mean which one of us doesn’t like mushroom soup?  I love mushroom soup but I have yet to try make my own soup.  I don’t know why… I think because I feel squeamish about blending food?  In fact I haven’t found a delicious bowl of mushroom soup since coming to Sydney.  Perhaps then I should take this opportunity to try this recipe out myself.  Thank you Evan’s Kitchen for letting me paste this link on my blog.  If I do make this, I’ll be sure to post pictures up and give you my feedback. 

I am sure it is as delicious as it sounds.  

In addition to the ingredients on the website (above):

– basil (as substitute for thyme);

– swiss brown mushroom and portobello mushrooms;

– half a lemon; and

– 3/4 cup of chicken stock (so reduce the milk)

And, I don’t have a hand held blender so I poured 3/4 of the mixture into the blender and pulsed a couple of times, and returned it to the pot.  Just before serving, I squeezed a splash of lemon which according to Jamie Oliver adds an exotic dimension and wholesome flavour to the soup. 

 

mushroom pot

 

Cravings

Yesterday evening, I had a craving for vietnamese pho noodles and soup.  Yummm.  So I tried to look up some recipes online and found some really good ones but they appeared quite difficult (well, not really.. I’m just lazy) and I contemplated whether it would be easier to satisfy my craving by dining out or attempting the impossible tonight.  I haven’t quite decided.  In any case, I’ve been meaning to buy some bones to make soup stock.  I saw some at Coles the other day but have always hesitated and opted for the packet stocks, which to me seem much easier and convenient.  However as there has been nothing in the fridge for the last two days, I thought to myself why not try something new?  After all, the only food I craved for last Sunday while nursing a hangover was simple plain porridge.

The other irritating thing I noticed about the wordpress blog is that I can’t post tags on pages, only on posts that are on the main page such as this one.  This means that I can’t file this entry into my musings page.  Have I mentioned this before already?

So, if I do eventually manage to attempt the pho for dinner, I’ll post it up… I hope I feel brave enough!!  These experiments take up so much energy, especially grocery shopping.  The weather has taken a turn for the cold; summer is over and welcome autumn.  Nothing better to enjoy the chilly autumn nights than with a bowl of hot, rich tasty soup.

Wish me luck !

So this is what I got from the supermaket today, massive chunks of beef bones !!  and organic soba noodle…

massive beef bones !

Bubble bubble toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble !!   Here’s the pot of boilin beef stock for the pho dinner tonight… looks good, doesnt it?  I’m really excited… You must remember to parboil the bones for 10 minutes in rapidly boiling water to get rid of the scum… the dirt on the bones my mother would say.  So, dying to know what’s in the pot??  Not eye of newt for sure !

Yummilicious beef broth cooking!

Ingredients:

2 onions halved, 4 inch pieces of ginger peeled, 6 whole cloves, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 cardamom pods, 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 oz regular sugar, 1/4 cup of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds, 1 tablespoon of coriander seeds, 5 star anises – combine spices in a mesh bag; a potful of water of course and the beef bones.

Boil for 3 hours !!!

If you don’t have a mesh bag like myself, I would throw them all in and filter the soup later.

To be continued…

 

And the saga continues… dinner was simply awesome !!!   Boil the soba noodles as per the instructions on the packet.  Drain water and place noodles in a bowl.  For the beef, I bought a minute steak and got my boyfriend to slice the meat thinly.  Normally beef pho calls for thinly sliced flank or sirloin steak – like beef sashimi style.  However, I was not able to do this.  Instead, I rapidly boiled the soup and place the raw beef on a ladle (that has holes).  It cooked quickly and served the ladle full of beef onto the noodles in each bowl.  Then serve ladles of soup into the bowl !!

My version of pho... yummilicious !!

Next, serve with a separate dish of basil leaves, coriander and mint leaves; lime wedge; slices of chillies or bird’s eye chillies; and beansprouts.  I did not have mint leaves and beansprouts.  It was delicious regardless.  Awesome!!

The broth was rich and tasty and the soba noodles go really well with the soup !  Pity about the beansprouts but the next time when I attempt it again (maybe with my remaining stock), I will be sure to remember the beansprouts and mint leaves which I know will make the dish wholesome !

I would say that this is a pretty healthy dish with no msg or oil etc.

I am awfully proud of my achievement  ! 🙂