Archive for soup

Carrot soup with a blend of southeast Asian tastes

April 30, 2008 at 12:37 pm · Filed under cooking, food, soup, spring, vego

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

As promised, my kitchen saw some soft action with carrots, ginger and chili. This recipe is vegetarian, spicy and easy to do. Perfect for my state that requires some detox and throat comfort, I thought.

Ingredients for 2 portions:

  • 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
  • 3-4 carrots, finely chopped
  • 1 red chili pepper, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 5 decilitres water
  • 1 vegetable bouillon cube
  • 2 tablespoons juice for fresh lime
  • salt and white pepper
  • fresh coriander or cilantro leaves
  1. Heat the olive oil in a casserole in low to medium heat.
  2. Saute the onion, carrots, ginger and chili for 7-10 minutes.
  3. Add the water, bouillon and lime juice. Put the lid on.
  4. Bring to boil in low heat for 10 minutes.
  5. Make the soup mixture smooth by using a hand blender to puree the carrots. Add more water if the soup turns out too thick for your taste.
  6. Season with salt and white pepper.
  7. Serve with chopped cilantro leaves on top.

Don’t feel bad if you don’t have a hand blender. I didn’t. Sure the soup would look nicer if it were a smooth liquid. Would have been easier on my throat too. But the rustic touch didn’t hurt anyway. Hey, I’m still breathing and blogging.

I’m pretty sure that this recipe is rich in taste. I do have to try it when my throat and taste buds are in normal condition. I felt the sting of the chili but missed the classic blend of the southeast Asian tastes. H said it was good. Tell me more. He said that there was some sweetness and that the spiciness came as an aftertaste.

If you happen to read this and decide to do the recipe, I would be grateful to hear your description of the soup’s taste.

 

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Miso soup

April 30, 2008 at 11:00 am · Filed under soup

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

After Lola’s burial, Ed, Claire, Jo, Aunt Millie, Nids and I decided to have lunch in one of the new restaurants at Serendra. We were hungry and didn’t have a particular place in mind. We just wanted a quiet place.

Chelsea. We went to this cafe because it wasn’t crowded and they had a table for 6 available. They have a wide selection of pasta in their menu. The salad sounded interesting. Arugula leaves with apples, walnuts and Gorgonzola. The lemon-lime mint soda was truly refreshing. They were served in elegant glass pitchers, about 4-5 decilitres in size. One glass pitcher per person.

The miso soup. Oh, this has neither to do with Chelsea cafe nor its menu. The miso soup was Aunt Millie’s anecdote about Lola who, in her younger days, had visited Millie in New Jersey. Lolo and Lola did several trips together.

One time while in New Jersey, Lola, Lolo with Aunt Millie dined at a Japanese resturant. They were served miso soup first. Lola dipped her hands in the bowl to wash them. She had thought that the soup was plain water. After Millie explained to Lola that she had just dipped her hands into the soup, Lola drank it. Why waste the soup?

Ed explained that in the 60’s, when Max’s restaurant was new, each customer was given a bowl of clean water to wash their hands with. Lola must have assumed that the Japanese restaurant in New Jersey had the same tradition. Max’s, by the way, is a Filipino restaurant that fried chicken built. It is still popular and doing good business.

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All-purpose vegetable stock

December 25, 2007 at 12:43 pm · Filed under christmas, cooking, food, health, nutrition, soup, vego, winter

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

Do you sometimes wonder how to make a dish more flavourful without using bouillon loaded with mono-sodium glutamate, flavour enhancers, emulsifiers, preservatives, and hydrogenated fat?

I found a solution by making my own vegetable stock using the vegetable stock recipe from Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo’s Cook Right 4 Your Type. Aside from being a healthy alternative that is highly beneficial to all blood types, this broth is sweet and clean-tasting. I can attest to that. Now, what could beat the promise of good taste and good health? N-o-t-h-i-n-g-!

  • 1 large yellow onion, cut into quarters
  • 2 carrots, washed, trimmed, and cut into large pieces
  • 2 stalks celery, washed and cut
  • parsley stems
  • garlic skins
  • apple skins and cores
  • mushroom stems
  • parsnips
  • leeks
  1. Fill a very large (5-6 litre) pot up to 3 quarters full with water and bring to boil.
  2. Add all the vegetables and herbs.
  3. Simmer for 40 minutes in low to medium heat.
  4. Cool and strain out the vegetables.
  5. Freeze in small containers.

Don’t worry if you mistakenly put in the vegetables and herbs before the water boils. The stock will still turn out fine. I committed this mistake twice. Oops!

Nor is there anything to worry about if you don’t have a very large pot. If you use less water, the result will be a more concentrated stock. You’ll then only need a little amount when you use it for cooking. Just ensure you freeze it in small amounts to avoid re-freezing after thawing.

Now, I’m going to reveal a secret. I use this vegetable stock for my lasagna meat sauce. The first time I had done it, H marked the difference in taste. The best lasagna by far! It outdid all my earlier lasagna. Nothing wrong with them though.

Yesterday, I made paella valenciana using this vegetable stock instead of water and chicken bouillon. H says I should make paella more often—a weekly staple like lasagna. Incidentally, we’re having lasagna tonight and postponing the pizza until tomorrow.

Oh, before I forget, here’s a last note on the vegetable stock recipe: don’t use broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and other vegetables of the cruciferous kind as they will dominate the taste of the broth.

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Sour and hot soup

May 25, 2007 at 4:57 pm · Filed under cooking, fish, food, meat, soup

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

H and I ate at the Flower City early this week. The soup of that day was tom yam. It was the modified version of the Thai recipe but the best soup they had had since we started frequenting the place 1.5 years ago. It reminded me of Nids’ home-cooked sinigang. Sour soup.

Sinigang is a clear soup dish where sour fruits are used for flavouring. Tamarind, guava, or kamias. Kamias (scientific name: averrhoa bilimbi) is related to carambola or star fruit, and bilimbi. Very, very, very sour. Sour to the max. Pure sourness. Sinigang can be made with meat (pork or beef cuts with bones), fish, or shrimps. Very flexible recipe.

Ingredients: 300-500 grams meat cuts with bones (bones make good broth). 1-2 pieces tomatoes, quartered. 1 large onion or 2 medium onions sliced. 1 white radish peeled and sliced at about 2 centimetres thick. 1 bouquet of kangkong (scientific name: ipomoea aquatica), also known as water spinach. 1/2 cube meat bouillon (optional). 1 piece of lemon grass chopped. 1-2 pieces green chilli pepper (3 pieces would give more hot than sour taste; we want the right balance), or 1 piece piri-piri pricked or halved. About 1 litre water (ideally, water from the third wash of rice is used). Fresh tamarind fruit.

I find measurement a dilemma in Philippine cooking, unless I follow a recipe book. Nids is one of the best in home cooking. She never uses measuring gadgets. She learned to cook this way. I learned to cook Filipino food from her in the same way. Measurement is done by taste. If Nids feels that the sinigang is sour enough, that’s it. If you notice the ingredients list, the amounts are all but guess approximations. Not scientific at all. I’m trying to be on the safe side. Not too much water, not too much meat.

But when it comes to the fresh tamarinds, they cannot be too much. The sourer, the better. The worst sinigang is one that lacks in sourness. You get dishwater for soup. Phooey! So how much fresh tamarind, the small to medium kind and unripe? Let me think. 2-3 handfuls. No. 3-4. Make those 3-5 handfuls. Yes, 3-5. Complicated.

White radish. No problem. Nids just peels and slices it.

When the meat has become tender, Nids adds in the radish and the tamarind puree. Radish takes longer to cook than the kangkong so it goes first. When the radish is cooked, the kangkong is added. The leaves go on top of the soup. As soon as they are added in, she puts the lid on the casserole and switches off the stove. The steam in the casserole will cook the kangkong.

Some notes.

  • Stressed cooks can skip fresh tamarind and pureeing. They can get tamarind bouillon and just add it in plain water.

  • Instead of meat, sinigang can be made with fresh shrimps (whole raw shrimps with heads, shells, and tails) or fresh water fish (milkfish or tilapia with head and tail minus scales).

  • If using shrimps, bring to boil the tomatoes, onions, radish, and the puree first. When the mixture has boiled, add the raw shrimps and the kangkong. The sinigang is done when the shrimps have turned red-orange. Serve immediately.

  • If using fish, season it first with a little salt on both sides. Boil the tomatoes, onions, radish, and the puree. Add the fish. When the fish is cooked, add the kangkong. Serve immediately.

  • Omit the meat and voila! You have plain vegetable sinigang.

  • If the sinigang is not sour enough, squeeze a piece or two of calamansi (scientific name: x Citrofortunella microcarpa; x is hybrid, I guess), also known as calamondin. I’m not sure if lemon will work. Lemon is mild. Lime is even milder.

Do I dare make sinigang, the Philippine sour soup? Are you kidding? I doubt it. Well, probably. In the right place and at the right time.

Suddenly, I noticed H making faces at me. I thought I heard someone say H-E-L-L-O. It was H trying to make contact with me. H succeeded to win me out of my little world. I snapped back to reality.

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