HK style Minestrone Soup

I miss this minestrone soup from the day I migrated to Singapore.  Only get to "re taste" it once a year when I visit my family back in HK.  Kim Gary @ Vivo also serves this in an authentic HK style.  There's a unique flavour in it when you compare to the western one.

 

Cathy let me tasted her minestrone soup one day and I asked her for this recipe immediately.  Her tips: the most important ingredient is the V8 vegetable juice and you should make a big pot. Because the left over soup  can cook with pasta.  You'll have a tasty and healthy pasta a minute away.  So let's try this if you fancy HK style Minestrone soup.

As beef blend well with this soup, I buy beef cuts or trims from supermarket at good discount and use my pressure cooker to cook the beef broth and tenderize the tendon.  Next, throw everything into the pot and cook until the vegetable is soft.  My soup is done within an hour. If you want to have an extra dish to come along with the soup, you should use Ox tail.  It is rather costly though and it also comes with stronger beef taste.    Don't worry if you don't havea pressure cooker or u don't have time to simmer the soup for few hours.  You can always use minced beef, just lightly marinate them with salt and pepper and add them into the soup last.  It will just taste as good.

However, some people don't take beef.  You may choose to use chicken broth or use pork bones to brew your own broth.  The choice of broth is absolutely up to u.

 Ingredient:

 1 can (1 ltr) V8 mixed vegetable juice

1 can Chicken/Beef broth

1 packet beef trims (300gm) or Ox tail (300gm) or minced beef/chicken/pork

1/2 cabbage

1 - 2 stick celery

1 pc carrot

1/2 onion

1 - 2 bay leave

1 ltr water

 

Method:

 Boil V8 vegetable juice with beef broth/Ox tail and water in a big soup pot.  Dice/cut all vegetable according to the size that you like.  Add Beef trims and bay leaves in the soup. Simmer the soup for about an hour, then add all vegetables and simmer the soup for another hour until beef trims or Ox tail is tender.  Season with salt and pepper.  Soup is ready to serve. 

 For pasta, simply choose pasta of your choice and bring them to boil until soft.  Then add them into the soup and let it simmer for 5 mins.  My girls love it.

Sushi

Shanice is in love with Ebiko Sushi.  She likes eating seaweed very much ....... and the crunchiness of the roe .... yummy!!  It is time for me to learn how to make sushi in order to cut cost.  It cost S$2 to buy 3pcs from Giant or Cold Storage supermarket.  She can eat 6 at one go... 

Read some cook book but find the "start up" cost quite high.  For example you need to buy the bamboo rolling mat, seaweed, rice (wow, the packet of rice will cost u a bomb... about S$ 10 for 1kg).  So I consulted a friend who stayed in Japan for a couple years.  She should know how to make it in a more economical way.   She often makes this for her son to enjoy, a simple and healthy meal.

Based on her experience, there is no need to use Japanese rice.  Just cook normal Thai rice with more water.   Expect less sticky texture though, but I am fine with that.  For every 2 and 1/2 cup of "New Moon new crop rice", I use 4 table spoon of vinegar, 1 tea spoon of salt, 3 tea spoon of sugar and mix it well and pour into the freshly cooked hot rice and stir well.  Once the rice cool down, you can start making your sushi.

The best part is that she taught me how to use those rectangular plastic bags (those that you use in supermarkets for fruits or meats) if you don't have a bamboo rolling mat.  Well,  another good tip to cut cost.

Making sushi is something fun and flexible as you can choose whatever fillings/toppings you could think of.  It is indeed a good bonding session with your young kids.  I choose to have tuna and ebiko coz all my kids and myself can't take raw food at this point.  

The part that I need to improve on is my skill of rolling sushi and also wrapping the seaweed on the rice ball.  I make quite a lot this time round but my family finish them within minutes.  Will make more this Fri coz some friends are coming for a visit.  Thanks for Tee san's tips!

P.S.  Shanice was too hungry to wait for mommy to make the sushi one by one.  So to feed this little "hungry ghost", I just scoop out some rice, cut the seaweed into small pieces and put in the ebiko and do a final touch of some sesame.  Da Da!!  Here comes a ebiko bento. She finished 2 bowls in record time... raising kids is not so easy...

HK Styled Salad

I was craving for salad in one fine afternoon.  My fridge was loaded with some fresh purchase from supermarket.  So I decided to make use of some asparagus,potato, egg, ham, canned preserved peach, apple, cherry tomato and some fresh sweet corn to create a HK styled salad.  My sis taught me this recipe when I was very young.  She used to make this salad whenever she had a party.  

Idon't really like the "raw" vegetable taste from asparagus and sweet corn. So I just throw them in the boiling water for few second to get rid of the raw taste.  Then slice or dice all ingredients according to your liking. 

Beside using fresh ingredients to make your salad special, the blend of salad dressing is equally important.  Hongkongers like to use miracle whip as the dressing base and add some condense milk or evaporated milk to make it sweet.  Often I find the condense milk makes the salad too sweet and the evaporated milk too watery.   

I still prefer using Miracle whip as the salad base because it tastes fantastic.  I use it to make not only salad but also egg mayo or tuna mayo without using mayonnaise.  Just use your own imagination to add whatever you like into the miracle whip to create your own special salad dressing. I added black pepper, garlic, sea salt, lemon juice, olive oil, Italian herbs... The reason I use canned peach is that the syrup will somehow balance the sourness of the dressing so I don't need to use condense milk. Mixed and toss the ingredients with the dressing. A light and healthy lunch/snack can brighten up a usual, sleepy afternoon.

Oat Wheat Sandwich Loaf