The Soup Queen

Remember my joy at re-discovering mugwort or Ai Ye atop a hill in Balik Pulau?  Well, guess what? I am growing them in my garden now.  The recent rainy weather has helped. The plants are flourishing.  And mugwort is a plant that keeps on propagating too. Each time I pluck off the leaves, I stick its stem back into the earth or pot of soil and the stem soon starts growing!  I love making omelette with mugwort leaves. There's something about the distinct fragrance of this plant that I crave.  I also am a big believer that if I crave something, my body is telling me I need the nutrients in that particular type of food. So I go ahead and indulge myself.  Still I find that my own mugwort leaves aren't as pungent as the ones my mom-in-law grows in her garden in Kuching. It must be the weather!  Ai Ye or mugwort plants happily growing in my garden Anyway, when my mugwort plants start to grow all over, I start pl...

Remember my last post on the herb I found while visiting Balik Pulau? Well, here's more about the herb! (For more details, read this. Mugwort is terribly useful! ) A week ago, my neighbour gave me a plastic bag full of Ai Ye or Mugwort. Yes, the very same neighbour who saw me planting the Ai Ye herb in my garden. The very same one who told me the herb grows wild and aplenty in her mom-in-law's garden in Gelugur (why is it that moms-in-law often grow this herb in their garden?) So here's how the herb looks like. It may look like a lot but once you fry it up with eggs, it shrinks. I just plucked off the leaves. The stems I stuck them into a pot and they seem to be growing. As my husband says, these are fast-growing weeds and they grow everywhere. (Update: Maybe it's the weather but my Ai Ye leaves aren't growing as fast as it should be! I just plucked off some and fried them up with eggs only once but the plant is still growing too slowly for my liking. ...

Ai Ye leaves or mugwort (artemisia vulgaris) One of the herbs which I liked a lot is this herb - Artemisia Vulgaris. However I didn't know its name before this. I got to know this herb thanks to my mother-in-law. Whenever we visit her in Kuching, I'd go looking at her garden and she'd have these patch of plants in the garden. She used to call them "hnia" which I think is the name of the herb in Hokkien dialect.  Now this "hnia" has a peculiar taste which is an acquired taste. You either like it or you hate it. My mom-in-law would pluck the young leaves of this plant and fry them up with egg,  in an omelette. She would serve this with the other dishes at lunch or dinner. The downside to this herb was that it made one release gas (a.k.a fart!).  She said it was good for getting rid of "wind" and the herb was good for women.  I always wanted to bring some of the herb home to plant in my own garden BUT my husband detested the her...