It’s time for another comfort soup and this time, I am featuring the Chinese White Radish Soup. The chinese white radish is also known as white radish (surprise!) or amongst the Japanese as the Daikon Radish. It basically looks like a white carrot which is oversized. It is quite a versatile vegetable as you can use it to make lo bak kou (turnip cake), stirfried, pickled or cooked in soups like the above. I am given to understand that amongst the chinese who practice or partake in traditional herbal medicine, the white radish is a no-no in the diet of the patient during treatment as it supposedly absorbs all the medicinal values. Anyone knows about this?

Anyway, the Chinese White Radish Soup is a simple recipe which is suitable even for beginners. Just prepare the ingredients, drop them into a crockpot / slow cooker / double-boiler or pot and simmer it. A good tasting healthy soup awaits you when it is done. I usually add dried cuttlefish and dried oysters for added taste and flavour but that is optional. Give this soup a try. It’s delicious.

This is my recipe for Chinese White Radish Soup

Ingredients

• 300 grammes pork ribs / bony pork or chicken parts
• 1 white radish (about 200 grammes or more – cut into large chunks or sliced)
• 8 red dates
• 1 piece dried cuttlefish
• 6 pieces dried oysters
• 700 ml water for soup (or approximately 2 1/2 soup bowls of water)
• 500 ml water

Method

Bring to boil 500 ml water in a pot. Add pork ribs / chicken part and allow the meat to cook slightly. Remove scum from surface of water. Remove meat and discard water.

Bring to boil 700 ml water in a clean pot. Add the partially cooked meat and the rest of the ingredients and bring back to boil. Then reduce heat to simmer for 2 to 3 hours or till soup reduced to 1 1/2 bowls water. Add salt to taste before serving.

If you are using a crockpot or double-boiler, reduce amount of water to just over a soup bowl. Add ingredients into pot. Boil the water separately and pour the boiling water into the pot before simmering. Enjoy your chinese white radish soup.

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Chinese White Radish Soup

I confess. I love fishballs. When they come fresh and springy, I can take about a dozen in one go. So, what’s this obsession with fishballs then? One thing is – it is cheap. I can get them for 10 cents each from the wet market. It is quite healthy though it may be processed fish meat. And it is easy to cook. You can fry them or use them in soups. When using fishballs in soups, it can either be as an accompaniment or as the highlight of the soup itself.

This recipe highlights the fishballs. I use chinese mustard greens (choy sum) to make this dish one step healthier – what with the fibres and nutrients from the vegetables. For the soup base, I use ikan bilis stock prepared fresh and not the instant granules. Ikan bilis stock is easy to prepare and you can even cool it and store them in the freezer for future use. Handy especially when you want to whip up a quick soup.

This is my simple but delicious recipe for Fish Ball Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

• 20 fishballs
• 100 grammes of chinese mustard greens (rinsed throughly and cut into smaller (halved) pieces)
• a pinch of chinese salted vegetable (tung chye)
• 600 ml ikan bilis stock (boil 700 ml water with a handful of ikan bilis for 30 minutes. strain and remove ikan bilis)

Seasoning

• 1 teaspoon of light soya sauce
• a couple of dashes of white pepper powder
• salt to taste
• a pinch of msg (optional)

Method

Bring ikan bilis stock to boil. When boiling rapidly, add fish balls and allow it to cook till the fishballs float to surface.

As soon as the first fishball floats to surface, add the vegetables. Add seasoning.

Dish up when all fishballs have floated to surface. Sprinkle chinese salted vegetable before serving. If you prefer, you can drizzle a teaspoon of shallot oil.

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Fish Ball Vegetable Soup

It’s been more than a week since my last recipe was published here on this site. I have been preoccupied with blogging about politics with the General Election looming and over the last couple of days, we experienced water supply disruption at our place. Hence, we ate out instead or bought some take aways. Incidentally, I went to Ichiban Ramen for lunch this afternoon and the bowl of miso soup which I had reminded me of the one I cooked about 2 weeks ago which I have yet to post here.

Miso Tofu Soup is a popular and common soup served in Japanese restaurants and I believe, probably in Japanese homes as well. Prior to mustering enough courage to cooking this soup at home, I have always thought that it would be a difficult soup to cook. Not any more. If you can cook instant noodles, you are more than able to cook this soup. All you need to do is just to buy miso paste (with bonito extract as part of its ingredients), dehydrated wakame (a type of seaweed) and silken tofu and you can whip up this tasty soup in a jiffy.

This is the recipe for Miso Tofu Soup (yields approximately 3 bowls)

Ingredients

• 500ml water
• 2 to 3 tablespoons miso paste
• 1 tablespoon wakame
• 100 grammes silken tofu (cut into small cubes)

Method

Bring water to boil. Add miso paste and wakame. Stir well to dissolve miso paste and allow wakame to hydrate and expand.

Lastly, add tofu and allow to boil for about 30 seconds before serving.

Updated (03.04.2008):

Thanks to readers’ feedback, the above method of cooking Miso Soup is incorrect. Perhaps the manufacturers should also provide instructions in English for the non-Japanese speaking consumers

Based on readers’ feedback, I gather that the proper sequence of cooking should be to bring water to boil, followed by tofu for about 30 seconds, turn off the heat and add wakame and miso paste.

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Miso Tofu Soup

This herbal chicken soup is sweet. Most herbal chicken soup can be bitter and kids do not like them. This soup, however, is sweet due to the ingredients used. With a combination of American dried fig, red dates, honey dates, gojiberries, dried longan, pei ji and yuk chuk , you can be assured of a sweet tasting soup filled with goodness. This amount of herbs used in this soup are estimates only and do not come under any special recipe from the chinese medicine store.

The herbs used are from top (clockwise) – red dates, dried longans, american dried figs, pei ji, honey dates and yuk chuk. Kei chee is not shown in the picture but you can see them floating on the 1st picture above.

This is my wife’s recipe for Herbal Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• 2 leg of chicken
• 700 ml boiling water
• Salt to taste

Herbs

• 2 pieces American dried fig
• 2 pieces honey dates
• 4 pieces red dates
• 6 to 8 pieces dried longan
• Gojiberries or kei chee (a small handful)
• 5 grammes Pei ji
• 5 grammes Yuk Chuk

Method

Clean the chicken legs and pour boiling water over it. This will help to remove some unpleasant “smell”.

Bring water in double boiler to boil. Place herbs on bottom of a double boiler and place chicken on top of the herbs. Add the 700 ml boiling water and cover lid. Double boil for 3 hours. Add salt to taste before serving.

If you want the soup to be healthier, you might want to remove the chicken skin prior to cooking.

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Double-Boiled Sweet Herbal Chicken Soup

Frankly, I don’t know what kind of seaweed is this that I cook. Since young, I have always known it as “Chi Chai” meaning “seaweed” in Hokkien. It is something sold in grocers in Malaysia and usually imported from China. The seaweed is nicely dried up to a round shape which you can cut to your preferred amount prior to cooking.

Mum used to cook this every now and then as it is such a simple soup to cook, not to mention the mineral-packed properties of the seaweed. Don’t quote me but I heard that it is supposed to be good for those who are deficient in iodine. Anyway, this soup can be cooked in about 15 minutes time. Most of the preparation goes towards mincing the pork with a cleaver but if you buy the pork ready minced, you only need to take a shorter period to cook this soup.

This is the recipe for Seaweed Soup with Minced Pork

Ingredients

• 1/2 piece of seaweed (soak in a large bowl of water and drain the water to remove impurities or sand)
• 1 large egg
• 100 grammes minced pork (marinade with a little light soya sauce and white pepper powder)
• 750 ml water

Seasoning

• Salt to taste
• MSG (optional)

Method

Bring water to boil. Roll minced pork into small balls and add them into boiling water. Allow the minced pork balls to float to surface of water.

Once minced pork balls have all floated, add seaweed and allow soup to boil for 2 minutes. Add seasoning to taste.

Before dishing up, break egg into soup. Garnish with chopped spring onions if you like.

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Seaweed Soup with Minced Pork

Chinese New Year is approaching. It has become more or less a custom for every Chinese New Year that we will have the white cabbage (some call chinese cabbage) soup for new year’s eve. Sometimes, we will use this soup as the soup for our steamboat feast. The use of white cabbage lends the soup a natural sweet taste, which can be quite tasty especially for the little kids.

You can use fish balls or meat balls. In this recipe, I actually use both fish balls and minced pork (rolled into balls). The basic stock for this soup is ikan bilis stock . You can use any bony meat (including chicken parts) to make the stock. Just prepare and boil the stock for 30 minutes to an hour. If you don’t have time to boil stock (I dislike the use of instant stock granules and prefer boiling the stock fresh), you can do without it but the soup might not be as flavourful. In that case, you might need to adjust the taste of the soup with an appropriate amount of seasoning.

This is the recipe for White Cabbage Fish Balls Soup

Ingredients

• 4 to 8 leaves of white cabbage (cut into 2 inches cross wise)
• 10 to 15 fish balls
• 100 grammes of minced pork (choose and use pork which comes with a little bit of fat. Marinate with a little light soya sauce and white pepper powder)
• a small handful of ikan bilis (choose bigger sized ikan bilis or those suitable for stock)
• 1 litre water

Seasoning

• 2 teaspoons light soya sauce
• Salt and white pepper powder to taste

Method

Bring water to boil and add ikan bilis. Boil in medium heat for 30 minutes. Remove ikan bilis.

Bring stock to boil again and add minced pork balls (rolled into same size as fish balls) and fish balls. Once the balls are beginning to float, add white cabbage.

Boil till cabbage turns limp and all the minced pork balls and fish balls have floated to surface. Add seasoning to taste.

Dish up and serve hot.

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White Cabbage Fish Balls Soup

Lately I have been quite fond of eating Bak Kut Teh, a herbal soup with pork parts (predominantly ribs). Bak Kut Teh is transliterated to the Hokkien / Eng Choon dialect as “Pork Rib Tea”. All these while, I would buy Bak Kut Teh from a nearby stall and have it for dinner with steaming white rice. That was until the thought of cooking it myself came about when I popped by at a Chinese herbal medicine shop. I wanted to see if I could replicate it at home.

Ready made Bak Kut Teh herb sachet are commonly found in supermarkets and grocery shops and the different brands available can be quite mind-boggling. We bought ours called the Chat Lin Brand, manufactured in Semenyih, Malaysia. So, last Saturday morning, I went to get myself about 700 grammes of pork ribs and loin and the experiment began.

The recipe was simple and easy to follow, though I did add the seasoning to my personal taste. I also added some Goji berries to sweeten the soup. The end result was a satisfying dinner for the family and I am looking forward to cooking the other sachet soon. There are 2 sachets of about 8 grammes each in a packet.

This is the Bak Kut Teh recipe

Ingredients

• 700 grammes pork ribs and loin (ribs chopped into bite pieces, loin kept whole)
• 5 rice bowls of water

Herbs (in sachet weighing 8 grammes as described on the packing)

• Cordyceps 5%
• Giyrrhizae 5%
• Pepper 10%
• Radix Rehmanmae 10%
• Fructus anisi stellati 10%
• Ramulus cinnamon 10%
• Codonopsis pilosuiae 10%
• Radix astragali 10%
• Angelica sinensis 30%

Seasoning

• 10 grammes goji berries (kei chee)
• 2 whole garlic (skin removed)
• 1 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• 1 ½ teaspoons light soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 heaped teaspoon sugar
• 3 teaspoons salt or to taste
• MSG
• White pepper powder to taste

Method

Bring a pot of water to boil and add pork ribs and loin. Allow to boil for 3 minutes. Remove ribs and loin and pour away the water.

Bring to boil the 5 rice bowls of water. Add ribs and loin, herbs and seasoning and allow to boil for 5 minutes. Remove loin and set aside whilst leaving the rest of the ingredients to stew in medium low heat for 30 minutes.

Cut loin into small pieces and put it back into the soup just before serving.

Dish up and serve hot with steaming white or oily rice (rice mixed with fried shallots).

You might also want to add button / shiitake mushrooms and / or fried puffy beancurd (tau pok) into the soup during the cooking process and serve together with yau char kueh (fried cruellers).

Read my review on Klang Bak Kut Teh.

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Bak Kut Teh

I was introduced to Kidney Ginger Soup by my wife. All along, my encounter with pig’s kidney is in the stir fries which I absolutely love. So, having kidney soup was new to me and took some getting used to. The taste is slightly hot due to the liberal use of julienned ginger and I believe this soup is suitable to aid “releasing of air”, if you know what I mean

Preparation of pig’s kidney for cooking can be an unpleasant experience for the uninitiated. The smell can be a bit offensive and might turn you off completely for after all, the end product of kidney goes south. Worry not however as after cooking, all memories of the offense evaporates

Anyway, when you buy the kidneys, ask the butcher to slice the kidney to remove the middle part which looks like some white netting. Wash it thoroughly. You might want to consider soaking the kidney in water with some slices of ginger. After soaking and changing the water 2 or 3 times, which should take you about 2 hours, make shallow cuts across the kidney without fully cutting the kidney. Make criss-cross patterns and then, cut them into bite sizes before cooking.

This is my wife’s recipe for Kidney Ginger Soup

Ingredients

• 1 piece pig’s kidney (prepared as immediate paragraph above)
• 3 cm ginger (julienned thinly)
• 3 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
• 1 stalk spring onions (finely cut)
• 4 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
• 500 ml hot water
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil (palm oil preferred)

Seasoning

• ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
• ½ tablespoon brandy

Method

Heat oil in wok and sauté ginger and garlic till aromatic on medium heat. Add kidneys and sear them well before adding water.

Allow water to boil for about 1 ½ minutes, add seasoning and spring onions before dishing up.

Serve hot.

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Kidney Ginger Soup