Great Chicken Broth

 Okay, so this broth is very good. Liquid gold, the author calls it. Here is the recipe. I'm very impressed at this lady Marion. Her recipes are winners. 

My only variation of her recipe is adding a celery stick to the equation. Obviously her recipe is for more volume, more soup. 

INGREDIENTS:

-2 litres of water 
-1 free range chicken skeleton
-1 clove of garlic smashed.
-1 green onion.

-1 celery stalk (my addition)

-1-2 bay leaves (my addition)

-3 slices of ginger.
-some peppercorns.
-1 teaspoons of salt.

-1 prawn (optional at the end)

STEPS:

1. First of all, you are much better off watching the video she has in her recipe. It is a great video. But anyway, basically you need to put all the ingredients above in a pot, bring it all to a boil and then let it simmer for 1 hour or so. 

Just remember to smash a little with the blade of the knife the ingredients: the peppercorn, the garlic, the green onion so the flavours come out in the water easier.

2. After that I let it cool off and basically I let it all sit down in the stove for 1 day (obviously when it is cold, NOT in summer). The flavours get richer the longer you let it sit there. Then I put the whole thing in the fridge and the grease after some hours comes up to the surface.

3. After that, or even after 2 days, I throw in the trash everything that's in the pan and put the broth through a fine sieve.

4. And voila! there you have your great broth. Season it maybe with more salt if you want.

Pics: Singapore, the country of fines.

 

Pork ribs and Corn soup

 A wonderful chinese classic that most chinese kids grow up eating. I  can't remember where I saw this soup, thus, I will not have a link and this is my version, but I have made it several times and it has very warm and comforting flavour, bony but sweet. We are back from Australia, where I have gotten lots of inspiration for new recipes. I needed that.

Anyway, I made this one today and was inspired to write it down because it turned out very well.

INGREDIENTS:
-2 litres of water.

.300 grams of pork ribs.

-2 corn cobs.

-some garlic.

-a few green onions stalls.

-1 parsnip in slices.

-some white pepper.

-some black pepper.

-1 tsp of salt.

STEPS:

1. Place some garlic in big pot and sautee.

2. Now add the ribs and brown them a bit for a few minutes.

3. Now add the 2 litres of water and the corn and bring it all to a boil.

4. Now add the salt, the pepper, and add the green onions that you have diced up previously.

5. Bring it all to a boil again quickly and then simmer in low heat.  Slowly you will be getting a great great broth, this is the trick of chinese soups, slowly you stew the bones.

6. You can then remove the ribs and corn and cut it all up to make it all more convenient to eat. I basically cut off the corn kernels and get the meat off the ribs.

So nice! perfect for winter this recipe is. 

Thai Bean Sprout Salad

Bean sprouts just go bad so fast, don't you think??? 

I had a whole bag and I looked for a salad recipe. This one came up and was pretty good! Will be making this again because it was so fresh. This is more or less the recipe I followed but with a few twists of another recipe.

INGREDIENTS:
-2 cups of bean sprouts more or less. 
-1 cucumber sliced.

-2 small carrots sliced.

-1 cup of cilantro.

-1/2 cup of peanuts crushed.

Dressing:

-3 tablespoons of rice wine.

-3 tablespoons of sunflower/sesame oil

-the juice of 1 lime.

-2 tsp. grated ginger.

-1 clove of garlic grated.

-1 tablespoon of fish sauce.

-2 tablespoon of honey.

-some black pepper but NO salt.

There are no steps other than assemble the salad and mix the dressing and pour over aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand add the peanuts. The peanuts on top is so so so good a game changer. Very good, healthy and crunchy. Obviously in this salad you can play around with some mint, some basil....try it.

Chinese chicken with almonds--Pollo con almendras

Yesterday I had a horrible day. No energy to cook but we had to eat! Saw almonds in cupboard and immediately thought: let's try a Spanish-Chinese classic: pollo con almendras. It was so easy seriously, and it came out well in such an easy manner. Amazing. Cannot lose this one. This is the original recipe I followed. 

INGREDIENTS:

-4 chicken thighs cut up in pieces.
-50 grams of salty toasted or non salty almonds.

-2 carrots.

-1 sweet onion.

-some green onions.

-2 shitakee mushrooms.

-4 tablespoons of soy sauce.

-2 heaped teaspoons of cornstarch.

-300 ml of water.

-Some coconut oil, or canola oil or sunflower oil.

STEPS:

1. Dice up the meat of thighs (obviously leave the bone out) and dice and seal the meat in pretty high heat in a wok in oil. I used coconut oil but you can use the other I mentioned.

2. Add the almonds and continue cooking, but turn down heat so that it doesn't burn. Cook for about 5 more minutes all together. Set apart the chicken and almonds in a plate and start cooking the vegetables. 

3. Cut carrots in slices and onions in eigths, they have to look like the onions of the chinese. Chop up a few stems of green onions. (You can use any veggies, I just happened to have those, peppers and mushrooms also work wonderful). Cook veggies in medium fire for 10 minutes till they soften a little but are still crunchy.

4. Now add the chicken and almonds back to the wok and bring altogether for a few minutes. 

5. Now add the soy sauce, about 4 or 5 tablespoons and mix well for a couple of minutes.

6. Now add the cornstarch to 300 ml of very hot water and stir and add to the wok. This is your thickener and what will create a wonderful sauce. 

7. Bring everything to a boil and then reduce fire to a minimum and let it sit until the sauce reduces and becomes thick. 

That's it. Delicious, like so impressive. How this sauce turns out kinda sweet is beyond me cause it has no sugar. Serve with rice.  Pic: Hong Kong.