Pear And Sweet Corn Soup

Double-boiled pear soup is always one of my son favourite herbal drink, he will always pester me to cook pear soup for him whenever he sees "Pear" in the supermarket. And from my "Soup - Herbal Tea" list you can see two different version of sweet Pear soup.

But today instead of cooking pear dessert soup, I decided to try something different. I got this idea from my colleague whose mum is a very good Cantonese cooker as well as soup maker. I used to hear from her that one of her favourite soup that her mum always boil for her is this "Sweet Corn & Pear Soup". So after confirming with her roughly what are the ingredients used, I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
300g Pork Ribs
1 Sweet Corn, cut into section
1 Large Shingo Pear, cut into quarters
5g Sweet & Bitter Almond(南北杏)
1 Honey Date(金丝蜜枣)
5 Large Red Dates(红枣)
5g Wolfberries(枸杞)
1000 ml Water

Method:
1. Blanched the pork ribs in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain them thoroughly, then set aside.
2. Use a clean pot, bring 1000ml of water to boil, add in sweet corn, pear and the rest of the ingredients except Wolfberries.
3. When the soup comes to boil again, lower the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes or so until it is favourable to taste, add in the wolfberries and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.
4. You can serve it with rice or before meal.

Note:
~ Shingo pears are one of the popular export fruits. They have light golden brown peels, and taste very sweet and juicy yet have crunchy texture.



This is indeed a very delicious soup that is full of natural sweetness and fragrance that is infused by the sweet corn and pear and the rest of ingredients. This taste just as good as the sweet dessert version but if you don't prefer to mix something sweet to go with your meal. I will suggest that you can have this soup either before meal or after your meal.

Braised Chestnut Chicken

Cooking one pot dish is always one of my favourite, especially those using Claypot method. I love the way the food is being braised with the sauce under low heat and slowly cooked through. Out of so many claypot dishes, braised Chicken with Mushroom and Chestnut is always one of our favourite and we can just have this dish with extra bowl of rice just to polish up the gravy which is so flavourful.

But this round as I was rushing to prepare the food in a short time before going out, I didn't use the claypot, instead I give the basic ingredients a quick stir to enhance the flavour then braised it in a heavy-duty saucepan for about 20 minutes till the chicken is cooked through. Then I transfer it to a Corning ware pot to keep warm and easy serving.

Ingredients: (serve 2)
5 Medium Chicken Wings, cut into halves
6 Fresh Shiitake Mushroom
1 Bunch of Spring Onion, cut into sections
8 - 10 Fresh Chestnut
1 Small Carrot, cut into 0.5cm slices
1 Medium Red Onion, cut into wedges
1 Large Chilli, deseed and cut into section
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
100ml Water
Some Cornstarch Solution

Method:
1. Clean, trim and cut the chicken wings into wing and drumlet portion. Lightly marinate it with some pepper and light soy sauce. Set aside while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil, add in the fresh chestnuts and let it simmer for about 10 minutes on medium heat. Remove, drain well and peel off the shell and outer skin.
3. Preheat a heavy-duty saucepan with 1 tablespoon of oil, saute the onion wedges and spring onion for about 20 seconds, add in the carrot and chilli and continue to fry for another 30 seconds.
4. Next add in the marinated chicken pieces and continue to stir on and off till the outer layer of the chicken is slightly brown.
5. Add in the oyster sauce and stir till all the mixture is combined, add in the chestnut and mushroom.
6. Give it a final stir, pour in the water, bring it to boil then lower the heat and simmer it for about 15 - 20 minutes till the chicken pieces are cooked through. (while simmering the chicken, give it a few stir on and off for even cooking)
7. When done, remove it from heat. Dish into serving plate and top with extra spring onion and chilli for garnish.
8. Serve hot with rice.

Note:
~ You can omit adding chilli if you are to serve this dish to kids. But by adding chilli it will enhance the flavour ever better.
~ Adding cornstarch solution is to thicken the sauce and give it a glossy outlook too.

Sakae @ Orchard Central

Christmas is a wonderful time to spend with friends and family to enjoy a feast while at the same time admiring the Christmas decoration and lighting along Orchard area. This year there are a lot of interesting design Christmas Tree in or outside the shopping mall of Orchard road. Today we are going to have our dinner at the newly open Sakae outlet at Orchard Central. As usual this outlet brings out an fresh and bright outlook which brighten up the whole dinning atmosphere.

From the menu, we order Root Beer which to our surprised comes in glass bottle form which is almost obsolete compare to the usual can drinks that we used to see nowsaday. Seeing this drink serves in glass bottle really brings back some of our childhood memories....... And before we went back, Rey also grab another new "Froggy Cushion" from Sakae which he used it as his supporting pillow......

For the starter, we had Asari Miso Soup which is just nice and cosy for the raining weather outside. The soup is nice and full of flavour while the Clams are just nicely cooked which brings out it's sweetness.

These Renkon Chips (lotus root chips) is one of Rey's favourite. But the chip that served in this outlet seems to be a bit different from the other outlets. As you can see from the photo, the chips seems to be a bit soggy, and it doesn't taste light and crispy from those that we had tried before. I think it is either being soak in the oil for too long or the quality of the lotus root is different.

Although Ebiko Sushi is not a must in our list, we will still pick it up on and off whenever we find that it is fresh from the conveyor belt. I am sure you will get to fall in love with those tiny, bouncy and juicy egg roe that is served on top of the wrapped sushi rice.

The Potato Salad at Sakae is always one of my desire choice whenever I feel like having some cold Salad dish. The mashed potato is smooth and tasty with some addition of carrot cubes. It is served together with some salad green as well as some crispy deep-fried "Salmon Skin" if I am not wrong.

Lastly, we sure can't go without Rey's favourite Ebi Tempura, but today we have ordered the Tempura Moriawse instead of all prawns. Tempura Moriawse consists of a mixture of Prawns, Imitation Crabstick, Mushroom, Capsicum and etc. The combination of the mix vegetables will varies from time to time depend on the availability.

Fish And Watercress Soup

Watercress is widely used in either Asian or Western cuisine. Mostly in Asian countries, we used it to boil soup with different ingredients like chicken or pork ribs. It sometime refer to as a cooling soup for heaty weather. Whereas in Western cuisine, Watercress is usually eaten raw or appears as a garnish, in salads or on sandwiches. This is a great vegetables that is loaded with iron, calcium, folic acid and vitamins A.

No matter which method you prefer to consumed this leafy vegetables. Today, I am going to share with you another way of cooking watercress soup with Fish instead of the common ingredients we used to add like "Chicken or Pork ribs". I am sure you will like this new way of preparing your usual watercress soup.

Ingredients: (serves 2 -4)
500g of Fish Fillet
1 Bunch of Watercress
2 Slices of Ginger
4 Red Dates
Some Wolfberries
800ml Water

Method:
1. Cut off the stem portion of the watercress, rinse it well and reserve it for the boiling soup.
2. As for the leaves portion, removed those wilted leaves, rinse a few times to get rid of the soild and dirts then set aside for later use.
3. Clean and cut the fish fillet into big portion, marinate it with some cornstarch and light soy sauce and set aside in the fridge.
4. Cut the tailbone into halves, fry it with 1/2 teaspoon of oil and ginger slices till fragrant.
5. Pour in water and sprinkle some salt, bring to boil together with the watercress stem and red dates, then lower the heat and continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.
6. When done, strained the soup, add in the watercress leaves and boil briefly.
7. Lastly add in the marinated fish fillet and wolfberries, cook until done.
8. Season with salt and pepper serve hot with rice.

Note:
~ I bought the tail portion of sea bass from the wet market, and I ask the fishmonger to separate the tailbone and fillet for me.
~ For this soup, try to get a bunch of young watercress because of the short cooking time.

I have tried cooking a few version of the watercress soup in this blog before and this is indeed a new taste that you might want to try it out. It is full of Nutrition by adding fish and vegetable in a one pot soup. And I am sure this will add to your collection of making a new watercress soup than the usual one.