The Soup Queen

This isn't a slow simmered soup that takes 2 hours on the stove. No.  This is a quick 20 minutes soup that you can make on days when you want something nourishing and you just got home from work and you're too damn tired to call for take-out.  This is my go-to soup that's nutritious and flavourful. Packed with only 3 good ingredients - tofu, bittergourd and minced pork.  You can even just cook some rice (in the rice cooker) while you make this soup. Once the rice is done, so's your tofu soup.  Here's how you do it.  1 packet of soft tofu, cut into cubes 1/2 cup minced pork/chicken - marinate with some salt, pepper, cornstarch and sesame oil  1/2 bittergourd, sliced thinly* some chopped garlic spring onions to garnish salt & pepper to taste 800 ml water  Heat up some 2 tablespoons oil in a pot. Add garlic. Stir until it browns. Add water. Cover and bring it to a boil. Once it is boiling, drop t...

You would have seen this in most Chinese shops. It's a packet of dried ingredients made up of roots and twigs. Actually it is sugar cane. Dried sugar cane with an assortment of ingredients to make a cooling herbal tea. It's called Cane & Arrow Root Stock.  The package contains 3 ingredients (see photo below) - sugar cane, carrot and arrow root .  All you have to do is put the contents of this packet into a pot of water, say 1 liter. Boil on low fire for 20 minutes. Then add rock sugar to taste. It's a traditional herbal tea for cooling down the body on hot summer days!  Arrow root is the white slices, the carrot is the amber coloured stuff on the top while the rest are just sugar cane. What's your favourite herbal tea? 

Here are some new type of fruits I bought in the supermarket the other day. They're called Chinese Winter Dates. I didn't know much about them until a friend told me they're lovely and crunchy. When I saw them in the supermarket, I decided I ought to try them out.  Here's how they look like. Don't look very appealing right? All yellow and brown. They're mildly sweet and crunchy though. Like an apple. This is how it looks on the inside. The flesh is white with a seed in the middle.  Actually they're dates.  Like the regular dried red dates.  It's just that these are fresh dates which have yet to wrinkle up and dry out.  They're mostly from Shandong and available from October to December (hence their "winter" status). It's supposed to be the "rarest fruit in the world" but don't take it too seriously. I think Chinese exporters tend to make big claims.  There's very little inf...

Wai san plant that I grew from fresh wai san  This is a wai san plant. I didn't even know I could grow them here in Malaysia. And I grew them by accident! ( Wrote about them a while back too). Below is a fresh wai san tuber. I've always bought this in my Lip Sin market. Used it for soups . Fresh wai san root  Fresh wai san tuber can keep for a few weeks in the fridge. Just make sure you wrap it in some newspaper and put it into a plastic bag. Sometimes though I forget I have wai san. After a month or so, I get icky about using the old wai san lying about in my fridge. As you know I never throw organic stuff that's edible away. I just turn them into compost. So I chucked the old wai san into my compost pot. I figured it will disintegrate and become compost after a month or so. But imagine my surprise when I started digging up the compost. The wai san was alive and growing! It sprouted new roots. I was feeling adventurous so I decided to give...

The soup for making your hair dark, lustrous and beautiful  Hey there. I have been missing for a bit. But I miss my blog too. Today I am going to share a new recipe but I am not too sure if I've shared this before. Doesn't matter right? I have been intrigued by foods and ingredients that are black. With my white hairs popping out, I have been on a journey to find foods that prevent hair from greying (actually I have not seen grey hair but I have seen lots of white hair). Pan-fried dried black beans in their split skins I hate pulling out my white hair by its roots but somehow I do it. Some folks say that pulling out your white hair encourages more white hair to grow. Bah. I don't care. My current fave - super large sized dried red dates  I have also been using henna powder to dye my hair. That's a lot better than waiting for chemicals to seep into my brain when I go to my hair stylist's. I sit there with the stuff on my head for 4...

I know. It sounds unbelievable right? Steamed green apple with American ginseng will cure your headaches forever? Isn't it such an audacious claim? Really? Does it work? Actually, these were my reactions too when I heard it from - of all people - my mum! As I live in Penang and my mum lives in Selangor (Banting, to be specific, which is a little town near Morib and one that's well-known for its seafood), we have regular phone conversations. These days it's much easier because calls are free - we use Viber a lot. So we have long conversations. About food. About life. Mostly food. She knows I love my food. And I like taking good care of myself. I am a hedonist. I probably learnt that from her. She's always telling me how we should all eat better. It is true though. With better nutrition, you do feel immensely better. That is why SoupQueen exists, right? ;-) Here's how the story goes. My mum often goes to the Sunday market in Banting where there's lots...

Do you like mulberries? I find them rather fascinating fruits because they're a cross between raspberries (in look) yet with the tartness of lemons. My friend, Don, once offered me a tiny mulberry that he plucked off his mulberry plant. As we live in Malaysia where the weather is hot, the mulberry was prized indeed. It was barely red enough. It tasted tart. But I like tart fruits so that was all right.  When I was in Hong Kong last year, I managed to buy some fresh ones and they were much larger than the tiny one grown by Don. For about HK$15, I bought a box (see below) at the local Hong Kong evening market. Looks like a lot of fruits right?  Mulberry fruits or mulberry berries? Bought these from a market in Hong Kong. Don't be fooled by the overflowing basket. The berries are propped up by lots of foam! Sneaky HK fruit sellers prop their baskets with foam so that you just get a handful but it seems like a lot! I think that is really cheating. I'd prefe...

This is a soup that I made one day while trying to clear up leftover vegetables in the fridge. I had half a carrot and some fresh wai san. So I made this soup which I think tastes infinitely better than plain old wai san with pork ribs.  Carrots in soups make soups taste a lot "sweeter".  For this soup, you will need: 1/2 carrot, cut into chunks Fresh wai san, peeled and sliced 2 dried red dates, pitted 300gm of blanched pork bones 1 liter water Bring water in a pot to boil and add in all the ingredients. Boil on high heat for 10 minutes before putting the lid on your pot. Reduce fire to a mere simmer. Simmer soup for 2 hours. Add salt to taste. You must let your soup "sit" and have the flavours develop once your soup is ready. I noticed that if I immediately serve the soup, it won't taste as good. Let it "sit" for 30 minutes or so before serving. The soup is flavourful and of course you must eat up the carro...

Each Sunday I try to find a new herbal recipe to test. I love my Sundays when I lounge at home, listening to the jazz channel and sipping homemade herbal tea while reading. Today I dug out some wolfberries or "kei chi" or goji berries from the fridge. I am usually running out of space in my fridge because all my herbs go into the fridge. In this tropical weather, herbs will either dry out or go mouldy if you keep them too long in the cabinets. One distinct way to know if your wolfberries are deteriorating is to see their bright red colour becoming a dull, dirty red. That's why you know your wolfberries can go into the compost bin! (Or maybe you can stick them into some soil and grow your own goji berry plants. I might try this though finding available space in my already thriving garden can be tough!) This packet of wolfberries is considered Super Grade because each wolfberry is larger than regular itty bitty ones you see in most pre-packed herbal soup packets. My r...

Whenever I see fresh wai san or shan yao or Chinese yam in the market, I'll buy some. As wai san can keep for a few weeks wrapped in paper in the fridge, it is a worthwhile buy. (And you know how I love making wai san soup and wai san congee ). Sometimes, I forget I have wai san sitting in my vegetable compartment and when I finally dig it out, it has gone all mouldy and icky. I am not too sure if I mentioned this but I compost all of my organic matter - from cooked stuff to fish bones and meat bones. A lot of people will only compost vegetable and fruit - I am not too sure why they think fish bones or meat bones or chicken bones won't compost. Maybe they fear the smell of rotting animal matter? As I've been composting using a 10-pot system taught by my friend Don for more than 2 years now, I can tell you that as long as you cover your waste matter with minimum 2 inches of soil, there will be no flies or maggots. Of course bones will not compost easily. It is afte...

First of all, so very sorry for a long hiatus from this blog. I have been extremely busy with my business and that left me very little time for blogging (and you know I have another blog, right?). The thing about business is, after sometime, you need to re-focus and re-strategize because we're no longer interested in what we were in interested in say 7 or 8 years ago. Our focus has changed. That's got a lot to do with experiencing everything that a business puts you through - both good and bad. Anyway. This blog will resume (I found out just this week that a blogger friend had closed her blog for good! Wow. That takes a lot of courage) and I will continue blogging. I am never at loss for topics - usually it is a lack of time! So let's see.... remember my pomegranate tree ? It's still fruiting with wild abandon. Its branches, puny as they look, are heavy with fruits and supporting the rosy orbs. I was really eager to taste the fruit but this is my first time...

I know it's ridiculous to be so happy about a fruit tree but this tree holds a special place in my heart.  I had this tree grow from some leftover pomegranate seeds while I was still living in my old apartment - I think that was sometime in 2009.  I planted the seeds in a plastic pot and forgot about it. You see, my then balcony didn't have much direct sunlight so I barely had any hope that the seeds would germinate. Fighting against all odds (and maybe, just maybe I have green fingers!) the seeds grew into a spindly little plant. Pomegranate leaves are long and tapered, as you can see in the photos below.  I brought this pot over when I moved home in November 2009. This new apartment of mine affords me a little bit of backyard. I promptly transplanted the pomegranate plant into a larger pot made of clay. I figured it would have more space to grow. I placed this pot in the garden, with direct sun and rain.  I kept "feeding" it compost every mont...

It's been a rather busy time for me (but hey, that's life, right?) with our new website product for the business as well as going home to Banting to visit my parents in March. March was also my birthday month where I turned 38. I am 2 years away from the big 40. One of the things which I love about soups is that if you drink soups regularly, your skin won't age that badly even if chronologically you are ageing! (That and a penchant for foot reflexology - I've been going for foot reflexology sessions twice a month and I believe that helps with preserving good health too!) Speaking of which, my friends from France who came to visit Nic and I two weeks ago (after their conference in Singapore) were rather intrigued by all this health and wellness they seemed to see everywhere in Penang. When we were going to a restaurant for lunch, we walked past a health and wellness exhibition. "Health is really a big deal here," Hugh commented. I never really gave t...

This is yet another easy dessert recipe for women. The combination of these two main ingredients, lotus seeds and dried lily bulbs, is better than any skincare. Drinking this regularly - say once a week - is touted to improve your skin texture and promote cell regeneration. It's really easy if you have a slow cooker. Just put the ingredients in, switch the cooker on, let it simmer for an hour and you'll have a deliciously light and sweet dessert to drink before you turn in for the night. Remember to soak the lotus seeds to soften first, then crack them open and remove the green (bitter) pith beforehand. If you can get fresh lotus seeds (the kind that is sold vacuum-packed), you don't have to soak the seeds. Lotus Seed & Lily Bulb Dessert 19 gm dried lily bulbs 38 gm dried lotus seeds (soaked and pith removed) 2 cups water some rock sugar to taste Place all ingredients into a slow cooker or crockpot. Simmer for an hour. Serve warm. Here's to beau...

Chinese people love eating parts of the pig. Apparently each part of the pig corresponds to the parts in us humans. So if you want to strengthen your legs, eating pig trotters are the way to go. Or if you want to become smarter, you go for the pig's brain (and we all thought pigs are stupid creatures!). When I was in my teens and studying for major exams, my mom would specially order a whole brain of the pig from the pork butcher. She would then boil the brain with some herbs in a slow cooker and I'd take that, soup, brain and all. This was to ensure my brain got all the nutrients it needed to perform well under stress. I do know now that consuming the innards and organs and yes, the brain of the poor pig, does increase one's cholesterol level. However, at that age (remember I was in my teens), I'd imbibe the stuff my mom cooked because they were delicious in a morbid way. I'd always feel a bit like Supergirl after taking these soups. Pig's brain, when ...

I was riffling through my recipe book last night when I saw this recipe. I am not sure where I got it from since I normally copy recipes, stick them to my fridge as a reminder to try the recipes out. Nourishing goodness for the eyes, blood and Qi I figured I should try this one out as it has a host of benefits. This dessert soup comprising dried longan, dried red dates and kei chi or goji berries helps with: replenishing vital energy or Qi promotes blood improves eye sight All you need are a handful of dried longan, about 8 dried red dates and a tablespoon of goji berries (soaked in water for a bit). Add these ingredients to a pot of water (about 1 liter). Add enough rock sugar (depends how sweet you like your dessert soup).  Bring to a rolling boil. Then cover and lower fire so that the dessert merely simmers. Simmer it for 35 minutes or so. Serve warm.  Great to be taken just before bed time! Warm of course. Not cold.  This recipe ma...

I have this climbing creeper plant called Clitoria Ternetea or Butterfly Pea Flower or Bunga Telang (in Malay) in my garden for many reasons. This blue flower is one of my favourite flowers of all. Its intense indigo makes me happy (I have always loved strongly coloured fruits and flowers...I don't know why). Clitoria ternetea flowers  One, you add precious nutrients into the soil when you plant this on the ground. Two, the flowers are used to colour food naturally. The blue Nyonya kuih made with glutinous rice was in the olden days coloured with pounded juice from this pea flower (I sometimes wonder if they use blue dye these days!). Even "Nyonya zhang" or the Chinese dumpling can be coloured with this blue flower.  Third, the flower can be made into a drink that's full of antioxidants. Fourth, you can use the blue flowers to dye your hair (haven't tried this yet). As a drink, I just pluck about 5 to 8 fresh flowers and steep w...

I came across this post on Persicaria capitata and it seems this weed is really a herb. In many ways, I have often pondered on the fact- when is a weed a weed and when is it a herb? Even certain grasses function as herbs for cats. My cat loves to chew on grass when she's feeling a bit under the weather. In the past, we used to bring home grass for her (we used to live in an apartment where grass was scarce!) and she was too scaredy to go down to the park to chew some grass, well at least the kind cats can use for stomach problems.  Now Margaret has all the grass she can chew. We're still living in an apartment but it's on the ground floor and we have a tiny backyard where we grow quite a bit of herbs and stuff. The grass, all types, are plentiful. It's a veritable buffet. With grass, comes weeds.  What really are weeds anyway?  Weeds are just a name we give to plants which we feel we have no proper use for. To Margaret, grass is a herb. If we huma...

Happy New Year folks! I have been so busy with business in between planning out stuff for this year that I've been quite guilty of not updating fast enough. Anyway, since this is the week before Chinese New Year, I'm going to be good and share some interesting dessert soup recipes. OK, onwards to this dessert made with two nourishing ingredients, pumpkin and barley. I had this as a drink recently when I was lunching with a good friend at a macrobiotic cafe. I enjoyed the taste very much and decided to replicate it at home. Pumpkin barley dessert - so nutritious and easy to make Pumpkin is one of my favourite vegetables but Nic doesn't like it much (especially cooked as a dish for dinner). But I do know that pumpkin is good for health and I try to incorporate it as much as I can into our food. Buying pumpkin whole is always better than buying halves but how else can you have pumpkin besides stir-fried with garlic? Hence this recipe! (Also I make pumpkin man...