Five Treasure Soup

This is the 4th random recipes that I have picked up from Philips, MyKitchen (www.philips.com.sg/kitchen) recipes site. Since this Thursday is Chinese New Year, I am sure most of you would like to prepare one or two simple Chinese New Year Auspicious soup to impress your guests during mealtimes. For example: The Lotus Root symbolise abundance and unity while Dried Scallop on the other hand means gold and wealth.

This is a very simple and delicious soup which requires minimum effort in preparation. As you can see from the photo there are about 4 main ingredients such as "Chicken", "Lotus Roots", "Dried Scallop" and "Shiitake Mushroom" and I make use of some ingredients that has natural sweetness and fragrant like Sweetcorn, Water Chestnut and Red Dates to flavour the soup instead of stock cubes.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

2000ml Hot Water
2 Skinless Chicken Drumstick with Thigh, washed and trim
300gm Fresh Lotus Root, cut into thick slices
6 Fresh Water Chestnuts, skin removed lightly smashed
2 Corn Cobs, washed and cut into sections
3 Dried Shiitake Mushrooms
3 Medium Dried Scallop
4 Red Dates
1/2 Tablespoon Wolfberries


To prepare this soup without running to and from the stove to check the heat and etc, it would be great if you have a Philips brand or any other suitable rice cooker that has "SOUP" cooking function. As what you need to do is just put everything in and press COOK which you can refer to a similar cooking instruction by MyKitchen below.

But don't worry if all you have is only stove or slow-cooker, you can still cook this soup by following the method shown.

Method:
1. Wash the lotus roots thoroughly, making sure there is no soil in the holes. Cut the lotus roots into 1cm thick slices. Discard the ends.
2. Wash and clean all ingredients thoroughly with tap water.
3. Blanch chicken pieces briefly into boiling water before cooking.
4. Bring 2 litres of hot water to boil in a large soup pot, add in all the ingredients except wolfberries and let it simmer on low heat over the stove for about 1 hour or so. OR
5. For slow-cooker, cook it on AUTO for about 2 hours, stirring the mixture at least twice during cooking time to make sure the ingredients are evenly cooked through.


ORIGINAL RECIPE FROM PHILIPS (MyKitchen):

Five Treasure Soup

Preparation Time: 15 Minutes                         Cooking Time: 1.5 hours

Ingredients: (Serves 5)

2200ml Hot Water
3 Cubes Chicken Seasoning
2 Skinless Chicken Breasts, washed and cut into quarters
300gm Fresh Lotus Root, cut into thick slices
1 Peeled Carrot, cut into wedges
2 Corn Cobs, washed and cut into sections
4 Seeded Red Dates
3 Dried Shitake Mushrooms

Method:
1. Wash the lotus roots thoroughly, making sure there is no soil in the holes. Cut the lotus roots into 1cm thick slices. Discard the ends.
2. Wash and clean all ingredients thoroughly with tap water.
3. Blanch chicken pieces briefly into boiling water before cooking.
4. Put the hot water, the chicken cubes, the blanched chicken pieces and the last 5 ingredients into the inner pot of the rice cooker. Close the lid.
5. Press the MENU button to select the SOUP cooking mode. Press TIMER and set for 1.5 hours.
6. Press COOK/REHEAT button to start the soup cooking process. At the end of the cooking process, you will hear a beep.
7. The COOK/REHEAT light will switch off and the KEEP WARM light will switch on to indicate that the rice cooker has automatically switched to the KEEP WARM mode.
8. The KEEP WARM mode ensures that the soup is kept piping hot till you serve it.


With such a quick and easy recipe above I am sure you would like to explore more recipes from Philips MyKitchen at www.philips.com.sg/kitchen for coming Chinese New Year too. If you are interested to find out more about Philips Rice Cookers series, you can refer to the website link HERE. Lastly you can also share with us any of your quick and easy recipes using rice cooker by leaving your tips and message at the comments post column.