Review: Fook Tai Mixed Herbs and Spices

It was Capt'n Hook who stumbled upon this Fook Tai Mixed Herbs and Spices soup mix when he went to a vegetarian supply shop during a period where he observed vegetarian meals. He told me that he just boiled the soup packet and drank it just like that plain. He really liked it saying that it tasted a bit like bak kut teh soup.



I read the packaging and it says that one can add meat into it. There are two packages inside and one is sufficient for a small pot of soup for 2. Use two for stronger flavour and larger portion. So one day I made a chicken herbal soup ala bak kut teh style by adding halved tau fu pok (beancurd puffs), fu chuk (beancurd sticks, the ones for stews and soups), dried shiitake mushrooms (soaked and sliced), a can of button mushrooms I've received during CNY, and fresh enoki mushrooms.

Fairly easy to make, just need to dump in some chicken meat and the soup packages plus the rest of the ingredients except for button and enoki mushrooms which I added towards the end. Since I was using kampung chicken, I boiled it for about 1 hour or so on low heat.



This pot of soup is good as one pot meal to go with rice, easy peasy and less cleaning up for a complete meal. Well, can chuck in some greens at the end to really make it complete :p

I've seen this soup package at vegetarian supply shops and mini markets, not sure if can be found at supermarkets or hypermarkets. Will update if I do.

Review: The Yogitree

The Yogitree in The Gardens has been one of our fave place to chill out whilst having delicious meals be it for lunch, tea, or dinner. This is another marvelous creation of Chef Ekachai of The Social, Planter's Jim and T Club. For this cafe, they're serving healthy dishes using fresh, natural and mostly organic ingredients without using addictives.



As usual, when most people, well especially like Capt'n Hook, see the words healthy and organic, they'll immediately have words like bland, boring, tasteless crop up in their mind and are usually very skeptical about the taste. Asking them to eat these kinda food is like dragging a cat for a bath!



Somehow one day Capt'n Hook and I decided to dine here for dinner. He was squirmish but after his first taste, he took a liking to the food here. Once, we were here for dinner and we opted for their set dinner which is really value for money.

They have Oriental Set at RM49++; Fish of the Day Set at RM65++ and Western Dinner Set at RM69++ (click the link to see sample menus). You can opt for a glass of wine or fresh juice. Starters are usually soup, followed by a few choices of main course to choose from and ends with a dessert which you can pick from the cake display.

We tried the Oriental set where we opted for a juice. Watermelon juice was served and seriously, it's refreshing and tasted naturally sweet.



That day, we were served Beef Herbal Soup which has clear broth and 2 springy beef meatballs.



Capt'n Hook opted for Ayam Perchik Nasi Ulam which was surprisingly good. He usually doesn't fancy the multigrains rice I cook but he has no complain here with the brown rice eaten with the freshly chopped ulam (leafy herbs). The chicken is baked before perchik gravy is slathered on it. This is tasty and he wished they gave more of the gravy. In the platter was a piece of fried fish marinaded in turmeric. Quite a huge portion I would say.



As for myself, I asked for Beef Noodle Soup. Adoi, I found out the soup base is actually the same soup that they served as the starter. *roll eyes* Sighhh they should have serve a different kinda of soup eh??? The taste is similar to Vietnamese Pho but the herbs and spices taste are stronger.



As we were too stuffed, we packed our desserts back. Since the cakes were served with ice-cream, they allowed us to have the ice-cream there. We picked a Carrot and Orange Cake with Cream Cheese frosting and Peach and Banana Crumble. The carrot cake is moist and packed with carrots as you can see below. I liked the crumble a lot as it contained thick layers of peaches and bananas!





On another occasion, we were there with BoiBoi in a weekend. I shared a Soup of The Day which is Cauliflower Soup (RM16) and Grilled Organic Chicken on Toasted Ciabatta with Basil Mayonnaise and Tomato Salsa (RM20). Both portions are quite large, luckily we were sharing. The soup was just normal but loved the crispy garlic toast that came with it. The sandwich has a lot of thickly shredded chicken inside. The sandwich is so tall that was kinda messy to eat up hahaha BoiBoi was busy wiping up after each bite.

BoiBoi had a Very Berry (RM12) juice which has strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, cranberry and carrot. It was indeed a very berry combi and tasted a little on the tangy side.



Capt'n Hook ordered the Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding (RM39) which is only available on weekends. The beef was roasted perfectly to his liking. The meat was tender, almost melt in the mouth texture. I will definitely order this again.



We ended our meal with an old school cake, Pineapple Upside Down Cake served with vanilla ice-cream. Hmm very moist and the best part is they uses fresh pineapples and not canned ones!



With attentive service, great and healthy food... Yogitree will continue to be one of our fave haunt in The Gardens ;-)

Since today has such an auspicious date, I just wish Yogitree will have a long life like Planter's Jim and The Social!!!


The Yogitree
Lot F-237B, 1st Floor, (Isetan Side)
Gardens Mid Valley,
59200 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: (603) 2282 6163


Technorati Tags: malaysian food

Sick People's Food

Whenever my brothers and I were sick, we were not allowed to eat anything made out of rice, yup... not even rice congee/porridge. The first couple of days, we would be on mostly plain bread with light milk diet... or most to most we'll have the sweet braided loaf or those sugar topped sweet square bread with raisins all over inside bought from the rotiman on a bike. So can you image how horrible it was when your throat and mouth have this bitter tinge during that time and you have to eat all these bland stuff?!! Urrghhh...

However, things will get better as we recover... still no rice stuff including bee hoon or koay teow but we usually will have "chat tzai funn" (not sure what this is called in English but it's small bunch of noodle bundled with red or pink string, which I hardly see these days and it's not mee suah) or macaroni. They're usually made very plain with plain soup or just mixed with light and dark soy sauce. Still doesn't taste great but way better than plain bread. Sometimes, Mom will buy kurau fish (threadfin or mah yau in Cantonese) to add into the soup with plenty of amaranth (yin choy).

Well, that's what I fed my boiboi with over the weekend who wasn't feeling well since last Thursday. He is better now and is back to school today after his fever came back on Monday afternoon.

I cooked the macaroni slightly softer than al dente for easy digestion. In a another pot, boil some water but not too much since it's only for one portion. Marinaded the fish slices (bones and skin removed) with some garlic oil (just a wee bit) and soy sauce. Chuck in the amaranth first, wait for a while before adding the fish slices since they cook up rather quickly. Dribbled in wee bit of garlic oil like a few drops. Adjust the taste with a wee bit of salt and soy sauce (can just use soy sauce only). Once the fish slices is cooked, pour onto the cooked macaroni and serve.



This is sick people's food but slightly better than eating plain bread!

Apple Barley Soup

I saw this soup recipe in the latest (March 2009) copy of Malaysian Women Weekly and since I've abundance of Granny Smith apple in the fridge, I may as well make use of them to recreate this soup.



This was my version of the Apple Barley Soup. Place 2 pieces of kampung chicken breast (2 pieces cos they were pretty tiny) in a pot filled with 1.5 litres water. Add in 2 tablespoon of washed barley pearls together with 2 handfuls of pitted dried red dates. Peel and core 2 Granny Smith apples. Slice them into sections and add them into the pot. I simmer these for about 1 hour on low heat and seasoned with some sea salt.

This soup was sourish with a slight sweetish taste of the red dates. I loved this refreshing soup which is rather different from the usual Chinese soup but Capt'n Hook finds it hard to accept the tangy taste cos he said it's not an expected taste for a soup hahaha.


Technorati Tags: soup

Dong Guai Soup

Errrmmm this post for my own reference, in case I forget how to get this soup done properly.

This is a recipe given by my masseur after my unfortunate incident. He said my inner body was cold, hence need something to fix it back.

His recipe was to boil 4 bowls of water with half a head of sliced dong quai (angelica) which is about RM5 for an hour on low fire. Then add in half of a small kampung chicken (not the choy yin kai but the malai kai variety) with skin and all. Boil for another 20 mins. Drink whilst hot, eat up the chicken if you like. According to him, it'll have 1 bowl of soup. He said the water can be adjusted based on how much soup I would like to have.



Based on my own experience, using my vision ware pot, I need to about 5 bowls of water on low heat (my stove is rather hot though even on low). By the end of 1 hour, I would have about 2 bowls of soup left. After another 20 mins with the chicken, I would have only 3/4 bowl soup. I also used skinned chicken cos I can't stand fatty soup :p

There... safely filed here :D

Cauliflower and Potato Soup

At times, I just don't feel like cooking a storm for lunch. Times like these, I would usually come up with something light but yet hearty enough for the fart (my boiboi la :p) at home and that also depends what I could rummage in the fridge.

This one, a Cauliflower and Potato Soup was fashioned out of the numerous cooking shows on telly and also the recipes I've read. As usual, my style must be... easy!

All I did was chopped up a bunch of cauliflowers and cubed the potatoes (best if can find starchy ones). Sliced loads of onions and placed them in a pot with olive oil. Fry till the onions turned light brown (caramalised stage). Pour in water (or chicken stock if you have any. The amount depends on how thick you want your soup to be.) and add in potatoes. Once they turn tender, add in the cauliflower and simmer till they're softened.

Remove from heat and I've used my hand held blender to whizz the cauliflowers and potatoes to the consistent I liked which is slightly chunky. Place the pot back on the heat and adjust the taste with salt and pepper. You may add in some cream now for a creamy version but since I wanted a light soup, I just kept it as it is.

To serve, ladle into a bowl, swirl in some cream (can be omitted) and sprinkle in some freshly grounded black pepper. We ate this with crispy garlic toasts which I've made by slicing a French loaf thinly; spread butter mixed with chopped garlic; and toast them lightly in a toaster oven.



Simple, easy but hearty!

Here's another easy peasy soup for you to try... Pumpkin Soup.


Technorati Tags:vegetarian

Black Bean Soup

Pablopabla of Hochiak! Delicious Asian Food is running a contest and don't say I didn't inform you guys that he's giving away more than USD100 as the prizes!!! It's very generous of him and the closing date is 31st August 2008. Head on to his blog to check the details of this contest. Hurry!!!

Now back to my entry... since I'm feeling lucky as it's my Birthday, I decided to post this up today haha... Based on his Black Bean Soup recipe, this is my version done in a pressure cooker.

Black Bean Soup

200g black beans
1.5 litre water
1 free range chicken carcass
10 - 15 red dates

Wash and soak the black beans for about 30 mins.

Chucked everything into the pressure cooker and boil till steam rises out of the vent. Reduce heat to medium low and start clocking for 20 mins. Turn off the heat and let the pressure go off on its own. When done, open the lid and serve the soup hot. You may add in some salt if you like.

The beans turned out super tender and the soup tasted of natural sweetness of the 3 ingredients. I simply loved this soup. This soup is very good for ladies especially during confinement period.


Technorati Tags: soup

Shallots and Lemongrass Soup

During my recovery period, I was sort of on a confinement basis, not overly strict but I was fed with lots of hot soup and tonics to boost my health and keep my body warm. Since I have a heaty body, too much of these goodies landed me in "hot soup" literally a couple of days back. Some how I caught a viral fever then came the cough and sore throat. As if not enough, I'm getting a cold now!

Anyway, I will post up some of the food and soups that I have taken during my recovery, well, just for the records and for those who are interested to know what kinda of food people on confinement take.

One of the soup I drank was this Shallots and Lemongrass Soup. Simply boil a big handful of smashed shallots, a couple sticks of lemongrass, chicken carcass and some white peppercorns for a couple of hours. Drink whilst its hot. This soup induces lots of heat and it's not pleasant in the hot weather. I was perspiring buckets after drinking this!



Technorati Tags: confinement food

My Version of ABC Soup

**Non-Halal**

The usual ABC Soup contains potatoes, carrots, onion and tomatoes but my version have a couple more of ingredients - corn and beetroot! The corn gave the soup an extra sweetness to it whilst the beetroot lent a tinge of pinkish trace in the soup. Beetroot is supposedly to good to cleanse the body and rich in Vitamin C and A, on top of a host of other nutrients.

I've used pork bones which I've cleaned and parboiled to get rid of the scums. They're washed again before they go into the pot. Next, dumped in all the vegetables and boil on low heat for 3 - 4 hours. Alternatively, you can use the pressure cooker but I didn't this time. I liked my soup to be slow boiled. Towards the end of cooking, adjust tasted with some salt if you like. Sometimes, I'll add some white peppercorns at the start of cooking but since the weather was hot, I omitted them.



There... the utmost nutritious and flavourful soup filled with vitamins A, B and C hahaha... BTW, this soup tasted better on the next day.


Technorati Tags: soup

Harm Choy Tong (Pickled Mustard Cabbage Soup)

**Non-Halal**

I was lamenting to hubby one day that it must have been moons since I last drank Harm Choy Tong (Pickled Mustard Cabbage Soup in Cantonese) as my mom had stopped cooking that at home for years. According to one sinseh, this pickled mustard cabbage is bad for her knees. Sighhh...

One day, we were eating at Fock Kee. Hubby asked me how come I didn't order Harm Choy Tong hahaha... I said I can make them myself. Moreover, Fock Kee serves complimentary soups for dinner :p. So the next day, I went to the market to grab some harm choy, tomatoes, soft tofu and some lean meat. I'm gonna use the guan tong (quick boil soup) instead of the poe tong method which required longer hours on the stove. Apparently, there are 2 types of harm choy, one is for stir-fries that I noticed it's darker in colour and have leaves on them. The other type that looked like this is meant for soups. Hmmm yum yum...

Easy peasy to cook this. Mince the lean meat and marinade with some soy sauce, white pepper, a dollop of sesame oil and a wee bit of corn flour. Set aside.

Wash and soak the harm choy for a while, I did mine about 10 mins. Do not need to soak too long, otherwise the harm choy will not taste intense. In a pot of boiling water, chuck in the harm choy and quartered tomatoes. Do not add in too much tomatoes if you do not like it too sourish. Boil for about half an hour (might need longer if the harm choy are thick) or until the harm choy is cooked throughly, else it will still taste errrr kinda salty and pickled.

Next, form the minced meat into balls using a spoon and drop them into the soup. Let them cook thru. Carefully pierce the bottom of the soft tofu container with a needle (before peeling off the cover) so that it can slide out perfectly onto a plate. Gently rinse with water and cut into large chunks. Taste the soup now and adjust with salt if needed. Slowly slide in the tofu chunks and let it boil for about 2 mins and turn off the fire.

Scoop into a bowl and drink to your heart content! Well, I did... very satisfying indeed.

p.s.: BTW, it's almost virtually fat free, well aside from whatever contained in the lean meat!


Technorati Tags: malaysian food + soup

Review: Zuup Soup Bar

Enough of my cooking, time for some outing...

Hubby and I was scouring 1 Utama one evening and can't decide where to eat since there were so many choices available. We were traisping up and down the lower ground floor (tunnel between both wings) striking off the lousy ones that we've been. Finally we stumbled into Zuup Soup Bar. Actually they have been around for a few years but never got the chance to try and I only read about them in the papers during their opening. Zuup Soup Bar is located diagonally across Bee's Bakery or beside Barang-barang.

Service was extremely friendly and we were entertained by the owner and his brother (sorry I did not catch their name but I think one of them is Gavin), plus of course their staff. Our first time there, we were introduced to their concept and type of food and drinks served which I think was an excellent customer service attempt. At that time we were informed that they were expanding by taking up the lot next to them which has since renovated and re-opened for business by now. With a retro interior, it should please the younger crowd plus the price is pretty reasonable.



Don't be surprised if they ask you whether you wanna read newspaper/magazine while you wait for the food to arrive or even better, have fun with the PS2!!! Yeah FOC (free of charge) one hahaha cool eh?? Even though they have labelled themselves as soup bar, they do not only sell soups but other fare as well such as fried rice, noodles, pasta and so forth on top of some nice cooling drinks and desserts. Soups came in either starters size which is served with some garlic bread or as main course where it is served either with a salad or bread. Otherwise, you could also order the soup in a bread bowl. The availability of the soup choices differs everyday, so it is best to enquire what is available for the day.

We were recommended the set meal which seems to be very reasonable, hubby opted for prawn noodles which is done ala Penang Hokkien style and the set came with a glass of drink. This set costed RM10.90 seems to be a good deal since the bowl contained 2 large prawns. Taste wise it was mediocre only, hubby said not enough kick. The broth simply do not have enough prawn flavour and it wasn't spicy at all.



I picked a soup even though logically it should not be placed under soup category since it's a stew - lamb stew and opted for salad over bread (RM10.90). Some lettuces, cucumber, capsicum, onion rings and one cherry tomato make up the salad which is served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (my fave combination).



My lamb stew came later with a dollop of cream and a sprinkling of cilantro. The colour doesn't look appetising, right? And it looked like soup since got so much liquid inside...



... but don't be fooled!!! Look at the amount of meat in there!!! I can't even finish them up. In the bowl it has plenty of celery, carrots and potatoes on top of lamb chunks. I love this stew... tender meat, vegetables were not mushy and it tasted surprising good with a balance of herbs and spices. It was also laced with a slight tang which I reckon must be the usage of tomatoes.



We have since gone there for another visit (this time with boiboi in tow) and tried other items on the menu... do check out their pumpkin soup which myself and boiboi loved so much that we literally licked the bowl clean! It's not heavy but yet creamy enough to warm up our tummies. We also shared a spaghetti carbonara which my boiboi requested (eh kids these days very smart, they know what they want to eat... he asked for spaghetti - creamy one! Duh...!). It was fine but it was pretty creamy (read - very "jelak" as in very filling) ... made me feel bloated but luckily my boiboi walloped quite a large portion.Hubby had the fried rice that came with a piece of well fried tumeric chicken. I forgot to ask him how it was and sorry no photos cos I was busy looking after the young fart! Also no dessert too cos we all too stuffed.

Overall verdict, a place worth to chill out especially when you have loads of time to kill to browse thru the reading materials or play some PS2 games with friends. Food wise, I would definitely return to try out the rest of the soups!!!

Zuup Soup Bar (pork free)
LG 223, Lower Ground Floor,
1 Utama Shopping Centre, Lebuh Bandar Utama,
47800 Petaling Jaya,
SELANGOR
Email: zuup@ycan-ventures.com
Operation Hours: Monday to Sunday From 11:30am to 10:00pm

Technorati Tags: soup + stew + 1utama

Sui Kow (Dumplings) in Clear Broth

With a rather large batch of paste made for Pan Fried Patties for IMBB#18 submission, I've gotten some sui kow (a type of dumpling in Cantonese) skin to make sui kow. Sui Kow is a type of dumplings either served in clear ikan bilis (dried anchovies in Malay) broth or deep fried.

Boil a pot of water with some ikan bilis for about 30 minutes or longer to get a pot of ikan bilis stock. Strain the stock. Prepare some choy sum and set aside.

These are the paste and sui kow skins. Majority people will add in mince pork in their sui kow paste especially those you eat in the shops but I didn't. Can add in black fungus (wood ear mushroom) and green peas to the paste too.



To assemble, place some paste on one half of the sui kow skin. Try not to over stuff your sui kow skin as the skin can breakup easily. Next, wet the skin around the paste. Fold into half.



Reboil the ikan bilis broth and add in the choy sum.

Boil some water in another pot and cook these sui kow in batches about 5 minutes. What I did was, I split one into half to test doneness in the first batch. From there I roughly gauge how long I need to cook these sui kow for the next few batches. When they're cooked, scoop them up with a slotted spoon and place into the ikan bilis broth.

Serve sui kow hot with some chili sauce, to me the best is with Kampung Koh* Garlic Chili Sauce. Yumzzz...





* Kampung Koh is a small town located near Sitiawan, Perak. This town has a few garlic chili sauce manufacturer. The famous brand was Kampung Koh and when it flourished, the rest of the world (in Malaysia actually heh) decided to use the same name as well. Now you'll have Kampung Koh chili sauce produced in Kepong (in the Klang Valley) too. I'm not really sure if it's the same producer from Kampung Koh but if anyone of you are from Sitiawan, can clear this up? Thanks.

Homemade Soup: Lotus Root Soup

**Non-halal Entry**

Today's Miss Sweet 16 Burpday. She loves homemade soup. Hence, I'm dedicating this blog to her. Happy Burpday Miss Sweet 16 Burpday! Oh yeah, Happy Burpday to Uncle Chirpy too :p hehehe

Even though my mother is not a Cantonese, we almost always find such homemade soups on our dining table. At least 3 times a week, my mother will painstakingly boil such soup for more than 3 hours. The soups range from ABC (carrots, potatoes and tomatoes); Old Cucumber; Herbal Chicken to many others.

I've took on to this as hubby likes to drink soup too and yes, he's not a Cantonese either. The Cantonese loves their soup as they believed such soups are invigorating and good to balance the body's health. However, I only boil them once in a while. Usually both of us will go back to my mother's place for dinner twice a week to check on boiboi and bring him home on Friday. So those two days we get to drink my mother's yummy soup. We're very lucky eh?

I've made this Lotus Root Soup recently. It's very simple, just that it need to be simmered for about 3 hours.



I washed one dried cuttlefish and soak in water for a couple of hour. I usually reserve the water to be used as a stock for the soup. Clean the cuttlefish thoroughly by removing the membrane before slicing them up.

I chose some ribs meant to boil soup. My friendly lady butcher recommended these as she said it's not oily. I cleaned the ribs and dunk them in hot water and boil for about a minute. Then I rinsed out the scum before placing them in the pot.

Added in sliced lotus roots and some red dates to the pot. Do use a large pot and pour in the reserved cuttlefish stock. Fill up with generous amount of water (well this one you'll have to guesstimate) as the water will reduce whilst you simmer for 3 hours on low heat.

Best served hot. We usually don't add salt to our soup, prefering the natural sweet taste. However, you may add some salt to your taste. No harm there.

Miss Sweet 16 & Unker Chirpy, hope you two have a great day today!