Abalone Fish Maw Winter Melon Soup (鮑魚魚肚冬瓜羹, Baau1 Jyu4 Jyu4 Tou5 Dung1 Gwaa1 Gang1)

I made this tasty soup for my family’s 2016 Thanksgiving dinner, and is very similar to the soup I made for Christmas 2015: Seafood Winter Melon Soup (海鮮冬瓜羹, Hoi² Sin¹ Dung¹ Gwaa¹ Gang¹). The soup is loaded with lots of seafood and is a special occasion type dish. I was able to get sliced abalone at my local Asian market. Usually fresh (or thawed) abalone is very hard to find where I live (it’s usually only available frozen or dried), so I took the opportunity to use it in this soup. Since abalone becomes tough if cooked too long, the abalone is added as the very last ingredient to the soup just to warm it in order to keep it tender.

Fish maw is the bladder of the fish that controls buoyancy. Fish maw is one of those weird and wonderful special banquet ingredients (at least in my experience) that is served at auspicious events such as weddings and at Lunar New Year. Fish maw can be purchased at your local Asian market or herb specialty store. If you’re lucky enough to have an Asian herb store near you, it’s worth going in to see all the dried herbs and creatures that are sold at these stores. The herb stores also have the most variety of fish maw to buy and with the prices to match!

There are two types of fish maw: dried and fried. For this soup dish, the fried version is used. If you purchase the dried version, like I did, there’s an extra step to deep fry the fish maw yourself. I actually shallow fried the fish maw, ladling hot oil over the fish maw (be careful when using this method). You can save a step and time by buying the fried version. The best description of fried fish maw is that it look like chicharrón, which is fried pork skin. The fried fish maw has to soak in cold water for at least an hour to soften it to a spongy texture and then cut into bite sized pieces. After soaking, fish maw has no inherent flavor (so it won’t smell fishy at all) and acquires the flavors of the ingredients it is cooked with. So the use of a good stock and ingredients is important to the flavor of this soup.

The soup stock was made using the Bone Soup (湯, Tong¹) recipe. You can used a prepared soup stock, but the taste of the soup is heavily dependent upon the quality of the ingredients. So if you’re going to all the trouble and expense to make this soup, you should make your own soup stock. The last Chinese character in the recipe’s name, 羹 (gang¹), signifies that this is a thick soup. A thick soup means that a corn starch solution is added to thicken the soup. The amount of thickener added to the soup depends upon personal preference, but the soup should be thicker than a normal soup and not thicker than a very thick gravy.

Enjoy!

Seafood Winter Melon Soup (海鮮冬瓜羹, Hoi2 Sin1 Dung1 Gwaa1 Gang1)

I made this tasty soup for my family’s 2015 Christmas dinner. The soup is loaded with lots of seafood and is a special occasion type dish. The other main ingredient is winter melon. Winter melon is really a gourd used mainly in soups, but I’ve also used it in these stir fry recipes: Chicken and Rock Shrimp with Winter Melon (冬瓜蝦仁雞, Dung¹ Gwaa¹ Haa¹ Jan⁴ Gai¹), Winter Melon with Dried Shrimp (冬瓜蝦米, Dung¹ Gwaa¹ Haa¹ Mai⁵), and Stir Fried Beef with Winter Melon (冬瓜炒牛肉, Dung¹ Gwaa¹ Caau² Ngau⁴ Juk⁶). So winter melon can be quite versatile, but cooks quickly and becomes mushy if overcooked.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to use fresh local crabs due to a deadly neurotoxin contamination, so I used imported (from another state) freshly cooked crab from my local grocery store. I used the meat from two cooked Dungeness crabs and that produced about 1 lb. (500 g.) of meat. If you’re not fortunate enough to have freshly cooked crabs available, canned or frozen crab can be used. Crab is not the only seafood that can be used, and abalone or sea cucumber can be used as substitutes.

The soup stock was made using the Bone Soup (湯, Tong¹) recipe. You can used a prepared soup stock, but the taste of the soup is heavily dependent upon the quality of the ingredients. So if you’re going to all the trouble and expense to make this soup, you should make your own soup stock. The last Chinese character in the recipe’s name, 羹 (gang¹), signifies that this is a thick soup. A thick soup means that a corn starch solution is added to thicken the soup. The amount of thickener added to the soup depends upon personal preference, but the soup should be thicker than a normal soup and not thicker than a very thick gravy.

Enjoy!

Fish Maw and Crab Soup (蟹肉魚肚羹, Haai5 Juk6 Jyu4 Tou5 Gang1)

Fish maw is the bladder of the fish that controls buoyancy. Fish maw is one of those weird and wonderful special banquet ingredients (at least in my experience) that is served at auspicious events such as weddings and at Lunar New Year. I made this soup with fresh crab meat for my family’s 2014 Christmas dinner. Fish maw can be purchased at your local Asian market or herb specialty store. If you’re lucky enough to have an Asian herb store near you, it’s worth going in to see all the dried herbs and creatures that are sold at these stores. The herb stores also have the most variety of fish maw to buy and with the prices to match!

There are two types of fish maw: dried and fried. For this soup dish, the fried version is used. If you purchase the dried version, like I did, there’s an extra step to deep fry the fish maw yourself. I actually shallow fried the fish maw, ladling hot oil over the fish maw (be careful when using this method). You can save a step and time by buying the fried version. The best description of fried fish maw is that it look like chicharrón, which is fried pork skin. The fried fish maw has to soak in cold water for at least an hour to soften it to a spongy texture and then cut into bite sized pieces. After soaking, fish maw has no inherent flavor (so it won’t smell fishy at all) and acquires the flavors of the ingredients it is cooked with. So the use of a good stock and ingredients is important to the flavor of this soup.

I was fortunate enough to prepare this dish while Dungeness crabs are in season, so I was able to get freshly cooked crab from my local grocery store. I used the meat from two cooked Dungeness crabs and that produced about 1 lb. (500 g.) of meat. If you’re not fortunate enough to have freshly cooked crabs available, canned or frozen crab can be used. Crab is not the only meat that can be used, and you can use abalone or sea cucumber as substitutes.

The soup stock was made using the Bone Soup (湯, Tong¹) recipe. You can used a prepared soup stock, but the taste of the soup is heavily dependent upon the quality of the ingredients used. So if you’re going to all the trouble and expense to make this soup, you should make your own soup stock. The last Chinese character in the recipe’s name, 羹 (gang¹), signifies that this is a thick soup. A thick soup means that a corn starch solution is added to thicken the soup. The amount of thickener added to the soup depends upon personal preference, but the soup should be thicker than a normal soup and not thicker than a very thick gravy.

Enjoy!

Bone Soup (湯, Tong1)

 

Soup stock is always made from bones, so the name of this dish is just my way of naming a most basic dish with a cute name. My sister and I were joking about growing up with a freezer half filled with bones to make soup stock. While there’s some truth to that, I don’t remember my parents ever having to buy bones in the market to make soup. As dishes were prepared, rather than being discarded, the bones were saved in the freezer. So unless you specifically want to make a particular soup (e.g. pork soup), you just use the collection of bones from the freezer to make soup.

I have the same habit of saving my bones in the freezer and then using them to make soup. So this recipe doesn’t produce the clear broth that is characteristic of a single species stock (e.g. using just chicken bones to make a clear stock), but is a rich collection of proteins leached from a variety of bones that are boiled together with some ginger and garlic. Now I know that doesn’t sound very appetizing, but it’s an apt description of making soup stock.

When making the soup stock, scum and oil from the bones will float to the top of the liquid. You can be obsessive and remove scum and oil as it rises while the pot comes to a boil, but I’ve found that you can wait until the soup stock boils in a covered pot and then remove the scum and oil. As a result of removing the scum and oil, the level of the liquid will go down in the pot. I just add some boiling water to restore the level of the liquid in the pot, so make sure that you have some boiled water available in a water kettle. As the soup stock cooks, the level of the liquid might also go down, so this method can also be used to restore the level of liquid in the pot. Not a lot of boiling water in total gets added, so taste of the soup stock is not affected.

I don’t add any salt when making the soup stock. Salt can be added, if necessary, when cooking the ultimate dish in which the bone soup will serve as the stock. Some salt comes from the preserved mustard stalk, actually half a stalk, which I use to make the bone soup. The addition of the preserved mustard is my way of introducing a slight sweetness to the stock and no one will ever know that the ingredient was ever used. I guess it’s my secret for making tasty soup (well, not anymore). I used to use a whole stalk when making soup stock (there are two stalks per package), but the center of the stalk never got cooked through. Cutting a stalk lengthwise and using half a stalk, the mustard green gets cooked thoroughly and the taste of the soup stock is the same.

Enjoy!

Bak Kut Teh (Pork Bone Soup) (肉骨茶, Juk6 Gwat1 Caa4)

This recipe was updated on 30 Jun 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed.

I had this dish at my local Singapore/Malaysian restaurant. It was so good, I wanted to make it myself, and so I went to my local Asian market and found a prepared packet of spices to make this dish. As I read the recipes on the Internet for this dish, I realized that there is no one way and just about any ingredient can be used to make this dish. The package of spices I bought is actually made in Taiwan, so I’ll have to try other brands in the future and contrast the taste of the soups.

The literal translation of the Chinese name for this dish is meat bone tea. There’s no tea involved in making this dish and is commonly made with pork spareribs. I also saw recipes using cut-up chicken, which I would like to try using in the future. A whole rack of spareribs would be too much, so fortunately my supermarket sells portions of a rack which weigh about 2 lbs. (1 kg.). You need clean and parboil the cut up pork before cooking it in the soup so that the finished broth is clear.

Enjoy!

New York Steak Miso Noodle Soup

I was hungry and wanted to use up some leftovers in my refrigerator to make lunch. So here’s what I came up with, which I think is better than any instant noodle soup you can buy at the supermarket. There’s no cooking to make this quick dish, outside of boiling water and using the microwave to heat the soup. The ingredients are either leftovers or are ingredients available in my pantry or refrigerator. The leftover New York steak and mushrooms can be from the Grilled Mesquite-Smoked New York Steak and Vegetables recipe, which can be found here. I used already cooked Hong Kong style noodles, but any noodle can be substituted to make this dish.

Enjoy!

Crispy Teriyaki Salmon Skin Noodle Soup

Sometimes you just want to have some soup noodles and not the stuff that comes pre-packaged with the mystery packet of soup spices. You can easily create a healthy noodle soup using ingredients that are already in your pantry and refrigerator in very little time.

Since I had salmon skins leftover from the Crispy Teriyaki Salmon Skin meal, I used this ingredient as the starting point for the noodle soup. The miso paste already contains dashi, which is bonito fish stock, so you just add water to make the soup base. Rice noodles (fresh or dried), dried seaweed, sliced pepper, cilantro, mint, and chopped scallions complete the dish. I usually prepare the entire meal in a covered heat proof bowl, so this is a one dish meal.

This is an easy and fast dish to prepare when the hankering for noodle soup hits you. I hope you enjoy this yummy noodle soup.