Udon Noodle Soup to Soothe Your Winter Blues

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of blog posts. I’ve been busy with my job search lately but I’m back now!

For today I have a very tasty yet simple recipe for those of you who love to have noodle soup. It’s a cold day out there so I was inspired to cook an Udon Noodle Soup with Thai Flair. Following are the ingredients and recipe needed:

Serves 2

• 500 ml of Chicken Broth
• Your choice of greens, I chose Snow Pea Tips
• Medium-Firm
• Udon Noodle
• Enoki Mushroom
• Wonton Powder
• Instant Sour Shrimp Paste (also called Tom Yum Paste)

Before I start to explain the cooking process I would like to name off the places you can find the ingredients. All of these ingredients can be found at your nearest Chinese or Asian Grocery supermarket. If you’re from Ottawa I bought everything from Kowloon Grocery Store in Chinatown. The photo above is my mise en place for the soup. First thing you need to do is heat up the broth and while it is warming up you need to wash the greens and drain, gather a bunch of enoki (however much you’d like) and cut off 1.5 inches off the bottom and rinse thoroughly. Tofu simply needs to be drained and cut up and the remainder should be kept in a container filled with fresh water. (Don’t forget to change the water daily to keep the tofu fresh).  Once you’ve prepared all of the ingredients all you need to do is toss all your ingredients in the soup including however much udon noodle you prefer to eat and add a touch of the instant sour shrimp paste. I added half a teaspoon. Simmer on medium high for 5 minutes and VOILA! you’re done!

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do, its healthy, tasty and great comfort food in the winter. Bon Appetit!

Feeling Under the Weather? Try My Special Congee Soup!

So here’s the story….I caught a nasty cold last week and I was not feeling like myself at all. I had bad headaches, nausea, fatigue and a runny stuffy nose. It was difficult for me to stomach regular food so I tried to remember what kind of food my aunt would cook when I was sick. The first thing that popped into my mind was her delicious congee soup. Congee soup is basically the equivalent of porridge. It is made of rice cooked in a large amount of water or broth. The congee that I had prepared was made with wonton broth I had leftover from making soup earlier that week. The unexpected ingredient I had added was leftover bits of jerk chicken. Following is the recipe, it’s very simple but yummy!

 

Jerk Chicken Congee (Serves 3)

• Jerk Chicken (cut into small cubes)
• 4 cups Wonton Broth or Chicken Broth
• Knob of Ginger (julienne)
• Touch of Garlic Powder
• One Cup Rice
• Scallions (Two or three) for garnish
• Chili Sauce to clear the sinus or just b/c you love spicy

For instructions on how to make jerk chicken refer to my past blog post here

To make wonton broth you need to make a chicken stock or you can even use store bought to save you time and add wonton seasoning to it.

Get yourself a nice medium sized pot to cook your congee. Measure out one cup of rice and wash the rice three times with water in the pot you are using. Once you have drained all the water add the broth and start cooking it on medium high heat. While the soup is warming up slice some ginger julienne and toss it into the pot to cook. Once you’ve done that sprinkle a fair amount of garlic powder into the soup. When the soup starts simmering make sure to stir the rice around occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the pot on the bottom. Add the chicken to the soup at this point. You will notice the rice is expanding and absorbing the broth, if it is getting too thick just add more broth or water. When its done it will look like the photo I took of my congee. Garnish with scallions and some chili sauce if you’d like. So there you have it, Congee with a Caribbean flair.

 

 

 

 

Pad Sew: My version of The Popular Thai Express Dish

Hi guys! I had a big craving for Thai food recently and decided to do a bit of research into my favourite menu item from the popular Thai Express food court fast food venue. I looked around and researched what the sauce was that they used in the noodle stir fry for Pad Sew. Pad sew is a popular Thai stir fried noodle dish more commonly known to have some sort of Chinese Greens and beef, chicken, shrimp or tofu as the source of protein. My version of Pad Sew includes beef and chinese greens. Pad sew is basically stir fried flat rice noodles with a protein of your choice with greens with a bit of scrambled egg and a special sauce and seasoning. Following is the recipe I created:

PAD SEW RECIPE

• One pack of flat rice noodle, the widest noodle you can get
• One egg
• Rice Vinegar (one dash)
• ABC Sweet Soy Sauce (to taste)
• Tamari (to taste)
• Canola Oil
• Minced Garlic (2 cloves)
• Your choice of greens (etc: broccoli or Chinese Greens)
• Your choice of protein ( I used sliced beef)

Directions:

Be prepared with all your ingredients before starting to fry everything together.  As they say, make sure your mise en place is ready!

Take one pack of the rice noodles and place in a big bowl and soak with cold water until softened.

Once the noodles have softened drain and set aside.

Prepare  your protein accordingly

Now, it’s time to start cooking.

Start boiling a pot of water and heat up your wok/pan at the same time. You will be cooking the rice noodle and greens while you’re starting the stirfry. This pot of water will be used to cook your rice noodles and greens before being added to the wok/pan. Once the water is boiling add the noodles and greens and let it cook in a sifter in the pot. Using a sifter will allow you to cook your noodles and greens without having to fish them out of the pot after. If you do not have a sifter you can just put the noodle and greens directly into the pot and strain everything into a colander afterwards.

Heat up your wok/pan and add a generous amount of oil. Then add the minced garlic. The directions right now are for one serving because if you cook more than one serving at once you will not receive the same results.

The garlic should fry on high heat for 20 seconds and then add the protein. Once the protein is almost done put the protein to one side and add an egg and scramble it in the middle of the wok/pan. Make sure the heat is always on high, this will go very fast so be ready from the beginning. So your egg and protein are cooked so it’s time  add the noodle and greens from the boiling pot of water into the wok/pan and add more oil if the noodles are sticking to the wok/pan. Toss everything for a minute and add the ABC sweet soy sauce to your taste and a dash of rice vinegar. Cook for a few minutes to let the flavours combine and voila! you are done! I included a photo of my version so you can see how it looks.

Bringing you to the Caribbean Islands with Jerk Chicken :)

Hey everyone! So for dinner today I have prepared a spicy succulent Jerk Chicken (literally a whole chicken lol) I marinated the chicken with the Classic Jerk Chicken Wing marinade at this site: http://caribbeanpot.com/?s=classic+jerk+chicken+wings&x=0&y=0This site by far is the best site I’ve come across for your Caribbean food cravings!

Raw Marinated Chicken

 

You can use just about any butcher cut of chicken out there like: Chicken wings, Chicken thighs/legs, chicken breast or plain out a whole chicken. I recommend that you marinate the chicken overnight and roast in the oven the next day. Following are photos of the chicken at its raw state with the marinade and the finished product…funny thing with the cooked chicken, I was so eager to start eating that I forgot to take a photo before digging into the food so please excuse the messy dish…lol

Partially Eaten Chicken Leg with Rice...lol

 

Korean Kimchi…to die for!

Hey guys! So I’ve decided to make my own kimchi after being fed up of buying it and not being pleased with what I got. I like my kimchi very spicy with that sweet and salty kick to it. I bought one head of nappa cabbage and had to venture downtown to pick up some korean chili powder at Greens Food Store on Rideau Street, Ottawa. *this stuff is potent, I sneezed after opening the pack!* I didn’t get a chance to post the shot of the cabbage soaking in the salt water brine but I will be posting a photo of the finished product later. I used this site for the recipe: http://drbenkim.com/how-make-kim-chi.htmThe creator is a doctor and even has his own radio show, he advocates healthy eating! I’m very excited to taste my kimchi creation…will fill you all in when the time comes.

Before Shot of The Kimchi Before Fermentation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade Kimchi All Bottled Up

*UPDATE* I forgot to mention that I made a slight change in my kimchi recipe. The original recipe by Dr. Ben Kim called for a couple of fruits to be pureed and added as a sweetening agent. I did not have access to these fruits so I had no choice but to substitute it with white sugar. I wasn’t sure how much to add so I eyeballed it and added about 1/4 of a cup….after tasting the kimchi it was a tad too sweet so I would recommend about 2-3 tbsp instead. (by using one head of nappa cabbage) The chili powder I used is a korean chili powder by a brand called Wang, as you can see in one of the photos. Oh…and the kimchi tastes very good besides the fact that it was a tad sweet for my liking.

Delicious Chinese Roast Duck at Home!

Hello everyone, today (January 29th) I was requested by my boyfriend to make duck but did not specify how he would like it to be cooked. It was not a challenge to decide which recipe would satisfy his palate. I automatically chose a Chinese Roast Duck recipe from this website: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Chinese-Roast-Duck. This is claimed to be an authentic recipe so I was very impressed in the procedures that needed to be followed in order to achieve excellent results. I had a bit of a challenge in the beginning as I had to go through various steps including hanging the duck to dry with a fan blowing cool air against it. This step ensured that the bird would be aged appropriately. Following are photos from the beginning step to the finished product.