The Soup Queen

Discovered how to make a new soup this time during my travel back to my husband's hometown of Kuching, Sarawak. He used to tell me that his favourite soups were seaweed soups. I always thought seaweed was seaweed until I tried kelp. It's not that I have not heard of kelp before. I had a bad experience a few years back when I tried cooking soup with kelp. It turned out rubbery and to this day, I call it my Tyre Soup because it looked like rubber! Also, it could be that the kelp was "old" and tough. So this time around, mom-in-law cooked kelp soup and it tasted very much different from mine. In fact, the kelp wasn't rubbery at all. It was soft but still had a bite to it. Kelp is called 'hai dai' in Chinese or 'kombu' in Japanese. Like most seaweeds, this is a nutrient-packed ingredient . In Kuching, it is sold in dried strips. It is cheap too at RM1.90 per packet. Remember that a little kelp goes a long way as it expands during cooking. We made the m...