The Household COO

I don’t know why they call this ABC Soup, but it’s been one of my favourites since I was a kid.  I suspect nearly every Chinese family must make this soup.  I reckon it’s also probably of the easiest soups to make.  Ordinarily made with pork, I used a chicken carcass for the stock base.  I still think it tastes just as good.

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken carcass
• 2 Potatoes, chopped
• 1 Carrot, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3-4 Tbsp concentrated chicken stock

Method:

1. Fill a pot with water up to the half-way mark and bring to the boil.
2. Add chicken stock.
3. Add chicken carcass and bring to the boil.  Scoop away the frothy bits to make a clear soup.
4. Add carrots, potatoes and onion.
5. Boil until carrots and potatoes are soft, and onion has disintegrated.
6. Serve.

Last night, I cooked for my in laws and one of the dishes I made was steamed salmon.  My mother makes a similar dish and I love it.  I have never tried cooking it before because it was just hubby and me eating and hubby hates salmon.  It seemed rather pointless to cook a whole salmon for myself so I never bothered trying to figure out how my mother made this until last night.

I borrowed a recipe from my favourite authentic Chinese Recipe site but modified it slightly:

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of Salmon, rubbed with a little salt
• 2 tbsp Sesame Oil
• 3 Stalks Spring Onion
• 1 tsp Minced Garlic
• 2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
• Dash of Pepper

Method:

1. Chop the white bulb of the spring onions into small pieces. Cut the green stalks into 5 cm lengths.
2. Place the salmon pieces onto a heat-resistant serving dish.
3. Stir-fry the garlic and spring onion in sesame oil.
4. Add the soy sauce and pepper.
5. Smear the mixture over the top surface of the salmon
6. Steam for 8 minutes until the salmon is virtually cooked through.
7. Remove from heat and serve.

Although the hubby had nothing nice to say about this recipe and stayed as far away from it as possible, I was quite pleased with the results.  Knowing that this wasn’t something hubby ate, I made certain I made him three dishes that he would eat, so I was rather annoyed that he still had to comment on the smell and style of cooking I elected to use for this fish.  For someone who hasn’t even tasted the dish, he sure had a lot of negative comments to make.

Personally, I would have been quite happy eating the entire dish myself, so if you like salmon, then you really ought to give this recipe a shot.

The first time I ever cooked for my in laws was sometime back in May this year.  Although it wasn’t entirely a disaster, it was far from acceptable.  Since it was just my FIL, my MIL, hubby and I eating, I decided to make the following:

Honey Roast Chicken Steaks
Spinach Soup
Sweet and Sour Pork

The Chicken Steaks

The only thing turned out exactly as planned (or almost) was the roasted chicken.  I’d made it only once before back in the days when hubby and I lived on our own and it turned out pretty well then, too.  I fell short this time because I was making a larger quantity and didn’t have enough sauce to marinate the chicken properly.  The flavour was still approved but because I made it with chicken breast pieces, my FIL didn’t really enjoy it as much as he would have had it been thigh pieces.

One thing you have to realise about the older Chinese generation is that chicken thigh is preferred over chicken breast.  The leg of the chicken is considered the best part of the chicken.  The breast is considered tough and dry.  I, on the other hand, think that the meat on the thigh is slimy.  To each, his own…

The Spinach Soup

The Spinach soup was a recipe I managed to get off the internet at another website which I cannot recall (my favourite and most trusted site for Chinese Recipes didn’t have a recipe for this soup).  This is the recipe I found:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 6-ounce skinless, boneless, chicken breast
• 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• 3/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil, or as needed
• 1/2 pound fresh spinach leaves
• 4 cups chicken stock, or 4 cups storebought chicken broth mixed with 1 cup water
• 1 slice ginger
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• Salt and/or pepper, to taste

PREPARATION:

1. Wash the chicken breast, pat dry, and cut into thin strips approximately 2 inches long and 1/8-inch thick. In a medium bowl, add the rice wine, 1/2 teaspoon sugar and a few drops of sesame oil to chicken pieces.
2. Marinate the chicken for 20 minutes.
3. While the chicken is marinating, prepare the spinach leaves. Wash the spinach leaves and cut off the stems. Blanch the leaves in a large pot of boiling water for 1 - 2 minutes, or until the leaves turn a bright green. Plunge the blanched leaves briefly in cold water first to stop the cooking process, and then drain thoroughly.
4. Bring the chicken stock or chicken broth and water to a boil. Stir in the soy sauce and remaining 1/4 teaspoon sugar.
5. Add the chicken strips. Bring back to a boil and cook until the chicken turns white and is cooked through. Add the ginger and spinach leaves and bring back to a boil. Stir in the soy sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning if desired. Serve hot. Serves 4 to 6.

I honestly don’t know how it would have turned out had I followed the recipe to the letter, although I do think the recipe is overly complicated when it could have been simplified.  The reason I didn’t follow the recipe was because my MIL suggested I use ikan bilis (read: anchovies) stock rather than chicken stock for the soup base. 

As is usually the case when an experienced person watches a beginner bumbling along, it is difficult not to make a contribution or suggest how things should be done, especially when she noticed my recipe wasn’t exactly the way this soup is supposed to be made.  If I recall correctly, the soup we usually have in the restaurants all use ikan bilis stock as well.  I should probably still have added some chicken flavouring to the soup or at least some salt because the soup turned out rather bland. 

It wasn’t a total disaster, but it didn’t exactly taste great either.  My second attempt to make this soup at a later date (using my own recipe, heavily modified off this one), when it was just hubby and I eating, turned out a whole lot better.

The Sweet and Sour Pork

This was probably the single biggest failing of the entire night.  Although the sauce tasted pretty authentic, the final texture was all wrong.  When I was selecting the recipes I wanted to cook for dinner the night before, I somehow missed the fact that the sweet and sour pork dish was made of mince pork.  The first time I used this recipe, I substituted the pork for chicken because the hubby doesn’t eat pork.

My FIL, on the other hand, is a pork man.  No meal is complete without at least one pork dish, so I decided to make this dish especially for him.  When I discovered too little too late that the pork was minced, I made a rash decision to make pork balls, add a layer of batter over them, deep fry and then cook the sauce to pour over. 

Why couldn’t I just stir-fry the mince?  Because I knew that mince meat wasn’t considered “meat” in the eyes of the men in this family (especially after hearing the argument that ensued between the hubby and my SIL when they were studying abroad where the hubby complained that mince meat was not meat).  The comment that followed after dinner only served to reconfirm my suspicions that my FIL felt the same way about meat as my hubby did.

So instead of chopping up potatoes, I cooked them in the microwave, mashed them, and added them to the pork mince.  Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan because this was the last dish I had been working on and my time management on the whole cooking session was rather poor.  By the time I got around to the pork dish, it was nearly time for dinner so I panicked and just stir-fried the pork, skipping the part about making pork balls.

After the stress of making dinner for my in laws, needless to say I didn’t volunteer to cook again for quite a while.  I was also extremely grateful to my MIL for her patience in cooking for all of us day after day - especially with so many fussy eaters in the family.

After learning about the Vita-Mix from some friends of my parents, I’ve become rather interested in this “whole foods” concept of nutrition.  Especially since my son is so selective with food, making it rather difficult for me to find novel ways to get him to eat a variety of nutritious foods, my curiosity was piqued.  Despite the rather absorbitent price tag of US$550 for the bread-making package, I was still keen to order this multi-functional blender until I discovered that I can’t order online it from where I live.  Dang!

However, there is a local distributor retailing the older model but it’s going to cost me RM3000 - versus the approximately RM1870 (based on today’s exchange rate) for the newest US Vita-Mix model.  Double dang!

So I decided to look around for alternatives because I’m sure Vita-Mix can’t be the only multi-functional blender than can make hot soups, bread and ice cream, in addition to other things.  And it isn’t.  Here are a couple of other multi-functional blenders that achieve the same results - or so it seems.

The Power Mill Magic Blender

From the description on their website, the Power Mill looks like it can perform all the functions a Vita-Mix promises, although with a slightly heftier price tag.  Available at $590, although I’m not sure whether you’ll get the cookbooks and the additional “dry container” that comes with the Vita-Mix (although it doesn’t look like it from the looks of the website), it’s still looking a lot more attractive than the local Vita-Mix model available here.

I’m not sure if I can purchase the Power Mill from where I live (my country isn’t even listed as an option to select on their website), nor do I know of any local sources retailing this product.  On the up side, the Power Mill is an Australian product so I might be able to get it when we visit my parents for Christmas.

Post Update: As clarified by Power Mill Blender, they do ship internationally and the price remains fixed.

The Sunbeam Cafe Series Blender

This is the second option and it comes with a much more affordable price tag of $299.99.  The only thing is that I don’t know if this blender can make ice cream or bread.  I don’t think it can make hot soup, either.

Looks like the Vita-Mix is still the best bet at this point - at least if I want to make hot soups, bread and ice cream with my blender.

I want one of these…

It’s a Vita-Mix 5200.

I first heard about it from some friends of my parents.  They had one and they used it to blend us a very refreshing jug of orange juice. 

Why I like it

What I liked about it was that you can use it to blend whole-fruit juices.  In other words, you can throw in your whole orange - skin, seeds and all - and it will blend it into an easily consumable liquid. 

We have a juicer at home and one of the reasons why I hate using it is because I find it rather tedious to have to cut and peel the fruits because juicing them.  It is also a real mess to clean up and a bit of a waste to throw out the pulp of the fruit - which can actually be quite considerable.  The juicer is also not very suitable for dryish fruits, like bananas and avocados.

Cleaning

Cleaning the Vita-Mix is easy.  All you have to do is add water into the container and turn on the switch as if you are blending more juice.  What could be easier than that! 

What can it do

Aside from juices, you can make soups, ice cream, dips, pureed food for baby, and bread.  For a blender, this machine is pretty versatile.

Price

I was pretty keen to get one after hearing about it, but now that I’ve been actively blending smoothies for breakfast, I have a justifiable reason for getting it.  Unlike the juicer that went into storage after I got tired of cleaning it, I’m pretty sure I’ll make good use of this.

The only stumbling block is that the Vita-Mix costs many times more than regular blender.  How much?  Try US$450.  Yeah and that’s just the basic model.

I guess I’m going to have to think about it a little harder before I decide to get it…

Since we got married, the hubby has been encouraging me to take cooking lessons from his Mum so that I can learn to cook his favourite dishes. While I am open to the idea of improving my haphazard and makeshift cooking style, I have found it rather difficult to learn how to cook under the tutelage of my MIL.  It was only recently that it really hit me as to why I ran into such difficulties…

I guess the fundamental problem lies in the fact that my MIL doesn’t trust modern technology, whereas I depend upon it like my body relies upon the blood in my veins.  I believe in automating and letting a machine do the hardwork because that is fundamentally what a machine was created to do - to make our lives easier. 

My reliance on technology extends well beyond the four walls of a kitchen.  For instance, when I used to live in Melbourne, I never visited a bank personally.  If I needed money, there was the ATM (and later EFTPOS where I could also withdraw money from the cashier’s till while buying my groceries).  If I needed to pay a bill, there was telephone banking (internet banking was still relatively in its infancy at that time). 

I throw everything in the washing machine, even the clothes with labels that state “handwash”.  While my MIL believes that handwashing produces cleaner clothes, I believe that nothing cleans better than the washing machine.  To my MIL, bread that isn’t kneaded by hand doesn’t taste as good, while I happily throw everything into the mixer for kneading.  I don’t particularly enjoy making bread by hand because I dislike getting dough stuck to my fingers.

In the kitchen, the microwave is my best friend.  In the kitchen, the stove is my MIL’s best friend.  I don’t trust myself to cook rice in anything other than a rice cooker.  My MIL prefers to use a pot to cook her chicken rice.  Even when her rice cooker went on the blink, she resisted using my rice cooker, claiming it was too “complicated” for her with all its fancy functions.

I like my machines because they allow me to just push a button and let everything run with minimal monitoring and guess work required by me.  For instance, one morning I wanted to steam a bun for my son and I started preparing the rice cooker since it has a steam function.  My MIL saw me and asked why didn’t I just use a wok with some water since it was faster.  Sure it may be faster but I would have to wait until the water was boiling and then I would have to keep checking on the flame and the bun to make sure everything was okay.  The steam function on the rice cooker, on the other hand, would do everything by itself and I would be able to prepare my own breakfast without having to worry about the bun.

Beyond our technological differences, the other difficulty I meet lies in the fact that my MIL often cooks using her instincts for quantities.  She doesn’t have a specific recipe that states, for example, 1 tablespoon, 3 cups, etc.  My scientific mind that dislikes having to “guesstimate” quantities, prefers specific instructions and quantities.  In order to replicate someone else’s masterpiece, how else can it be achieved if you don’t have their exact method?

This was the reason why I wanted to shoot a friend of mine who once gave me his “famous” mushroom soup recipe that merely listed the ingredients that went into it but not the quantities.  Anyone with a little bit of cooking sense can make a guess at what ingredients are required in mushroom soup, but getting a great tasting soup requires knowledge of ingredient quantities.

I suppose I sound rather spoilt by technology and perhaps rather lazy to do things by hand.  However, to me, it’s all about speed, efficiency, multi-tasking, minimising errors and simplifying processes.  Yeah, I guess that what having worked in the corporate world does to you…

Thanks to the power failure yesterday, I ended up with a whole pot of brown rice that I didn’t know what to do with.  The power was cut while the rice was partway through cooking and by the time it came back on, it was too late for the rice to be ready in time for dinner so we ended up having to cook a batch of white rice instead.  Since the brown rice was already partially cooked, I had to let the rice cooker complete its cycle anyway.

So the hubby suggested I make fried rice for tonight’s dinner… 

Well, I have made fried rice before - during my home economics class in highschool.  I can’t say it turned out wonderfully - at least my memory of it wasn’t great.  If I remember correctly, the grains of rice were too hard but the rest of it was okay.  All I remembered from that lesson in school was what my teacher said about fried rice being known as the seven-jewelled wonder in Chinese recipes, or something along those lines.  Basically what it meant was that true Chinese fried rice is usually cooked with seven different ingredients blended into the rice.  I didn’t question her since she was also Chinese, so I figured she ought to know what she was talking about.

At home, fried rice was what Mum made whenever she had left overs to dispose of.  So much for “seven-jewelled wonder”…  But mostly what I remembered and loved about my Mum’s fried rice was the Chinese sausages and the lovely colouration from the peas, carrots and corn.  So I decided I was going to repeat that in my batch of fried rice, plus some chicken to appease the hubby’s taste for “real” meat.

I adapted my fried rice recipe from my trusty cooking resource - Healthy Chinese Cooking - with my own personal modifications to the ingredients.  I didn’t get to seven different ingredients (unless you count the rice) but I did managed to include six different ingredients (chicken, chinese sausage, egg, carrots, peas and corn). 

How did it turn out?

Well, I got two votes out of three.  Sad to say that the hubby was less than thrilled to see peas, carrots and chinese sausage in the mix.  Even the corn wasn’t particularly welcomed.  Hubby’s note to wife: no peas, carrots, corn and chinese sausages in fried rice in future; corn is only okay when eaten with steak.  Well!  I like fried rice with peas, carrots, corn and chinese sausages!  And apparently so did Gavin and the maid (who told me my dinner was “sedap” - Malay for “delicious”).

Personally, when I did the taste test after cooking it, I thought it tasted pretty good, too.  The funny thing was that it sort of lost it’s flavour when I sat down to eat dinner and I’m not sure why.  The same thing happened with the soup.  I made soup with Chicken, carrot and cabbage and when I tasted it after cooking, I thought it was pretty good.  Funny how it lost its taste later.  I wonder if this is what some chefs experience when they say they can’t eat their own cooking?  After cooking for so long, it’s like their appetite for food just disappears.

Anyway, if you take the maid and Gavin’s word that my fried rice was yummy and would like the recipe, here it is…

Ingredients

• 1/2 pot of Cooked Rice (this is how much I used, but you might want to decrease the quantity because I think it’s a little too much. The recipe from Healthy Chinese Cooking calls for 2 bowls of cooked rice)
• 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
• Dash of Pepper
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 Tbsp Concentrated Chicken Stock
• 2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
• 3 Eggs, beaten
• 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
• 200g Frozen Mixed Vegetables (peas, carrots and corn)
• 3 pieces of Chicken breast
• 2 Chinese sausages

Method

1. Place rice into a large bowl and break it up so the rice grains are separated.  Add sesame oil, pepper and salt and mix until the seasoning is evenly distributed.

2. Microwave the vegetables on HIGH heat for 2 minutes until cooked.

3. Chop the chicken breast into cubes and marinate with chicken stock and soy sauce.

4. Heat a small amount of oil in a non-stick wok.  Fry the garlic until fragrant, add the meat and fry until cooked through. Set aside.

5. Pour beaten egg into the center of the wok and allow to half-set (do not stir).

6. Add rice, peas, marinated chicken and chinese sausages. Stir to mix.

7. Serve when rice is heated through.

I also made soup, which was basically yesterday’s soup recipe without the cooking wine, and instead of spinach, I added carrots and cabbage.  Tasted pretty good, too - at least, I thought so.

I thought I should record the details of this recipe that I made off the top of my head.  It worked out a lot better than the one I copied from a recipe off the internet, too…  Just had to mention that since I’m so proud of myself.

When we go for a Chinese meal, one of the dishes I love to eat is Spinach soup with century egg.  Of course, I don’t eat the century egg - I just like the flavour of the soup and the spinach.  So naturally when I saw a recipe for Chicken Spinach Soup on the internet, I just had to try it out.  Regrettably, it was rather bland and the chicken was tasteless and dry.

So here’s the recipe I used today (just in case I ever have trouble reproducing it again):

Ingredients:

• 1 Chicken Thigh, sliced (although I’m sure you could use more - this was all I defrosted from the freezer before I even thought about what I was going to make for dinner)
• Concentrated Chicken Stock
• Cornflour
• 1 large bundle of Spinach, washed and chopped into manageable portions
• Chinese Cooking Wine

Method:

Marinate chicken pieces with 1 Tbsp of concentrated chicken stock and cornflour.  Fill half a pot with water and bring to the boil.  Add 1 Tbsp of concentrated chicken stock.  Add chicken pieces.  Add Spinach.  Taste for flavour (add salt if necessary).  Add 1 Tbsp of Chinese Cooking Wine.  You can also add a dash of pepper if you like.

And that’s it.  Now wasn’t that easy?

From time to time, my SIL (the chef) returns for an extended holiday break and she spoils us all rotten by cooking up a storm in the kitchen - a storm of desserts, sweets and other treats, that is.  Curiously, I asked her one day why she didn’t make dinner for us.  Before I get to her answer, I should clarify this point.  She does cook meals for us occasionally but not very often.  I thought it rather odd since dinner would give her the perfect opportunity to test out recipes - something I know she really enjoys doing.

Anyway, the reason why she doesn’t really like cooking dinner is because it is difficult to plan when the family has so many specific meal requests.  I never really thought much of it myself until I volunteered to cook dinner one night.  That was when I realised the stress of cooking for picky eaters.  Yes, I know, my son’s a picky eater, too, but when he refuses to eat my cooking, I just offer him my one-stop solution - breastmilk - and he’s happy again.  Unfortunately, I can’t exactly do that for the family. 

Here’s a brief list of meal restrictions in this family (after you read through it, you probably wouldn’t want to cook for us either):

1. There’s got to be dishes with real meat (and by real meat I mean chunks of meat - mince meat doesn’t cut it by a long shot) or the men in the family will be crying murder.
2. My MIL’s a Taoist so we can’t have beef.
3. My hubby and SIL won’t eat pork but my FIL loves the stuff so we have to have at least two different meat dishes (unless it’s Bah Ku Teh, in which case, the hubby will make an exception).
4. My hubby and SIL won’t eat carrots or cauliflower so there has to be a veggie dish that they’ll eat (in fact, there are a lot of veggies the hubby won’t eat - potatoes, lettuce of any sort, zucchini or any other like veggies).
5. My MIL abhores anything that is “ready made” (in the jar or out of a can, etc.), although the other day, I discovered ways to circumvent this issue which is also a trick my late Aunt used to pull with my Uncle who also refuses any food that bears the words “instant”, “quick”, or “easy” on the packet.  The trick is to make it taste like it was made from scratch and make sure you dispose of all the evidence.  My mother, I’ve discovered is also really good at this - she can make packet Rendang taste like the real McCoy, although I’ve yet to learn how she does it.

When you consider the fact that my repertoire of Chinese recipes is extremely limited, you’ll understand why I hesitate before volunteering to cook dinner again.

If you compare this list of food restrictions against the list of food restrictions in my family - which is none, maybe you’ll understand why I feel even more frustrated about cooking.  My Dad, my brother and I eat anything and everything my mother serves.  In fact, there isn’t a dish she makes that I don’t like eating.  The hubby likes to think that I have no taste when it comes to food and anything that I dislike means “don’t go anywhere near it without a ten-foot pole” because if I don’t like it, it’s got to be REALLY BAD.

Now that my in laws have gone to the States for a holiday and my SIL2’s convocation, making dinner has fallen back into my hands again.  The good news is that I only have one fussy eater to contend with (the hubby, since Gavin can still be easily placated with milk).

This is a quick and easy recipe my MIL shared with me recently when it comes to stir-frying those dark green leafies…

Ingredients

Bundle of leafy greens
Oil for frying
A dash of Chinese cooking wine
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp minced garlic

Method

Heat the oil in the wok.  Add garlic and stir fry until crisp.  Add vegetables.  Add cooking wine and soy sauce.  When the vegetables are cooked, remove from heat and serve.

Told you it was quick and simple…  I don’t have any pictures, but well, we’ve all seen stir-fried veggies before so I’m sure you’re not missing much. 

There are other alternatives when stir-frying vegetables.  You can also use concentrated chicken stock or the traditional oyster sauce.  The oyster sauce variation is the one you usually see in Chinese restaurants.