Potato soup with curry and yogurt

I was with a friend of mine last night and we wanted to cook something really quick to eat. It was yummy. Kev loved it so much, he even licked the whole pan.


Ingredients:

900gr potatoes (cut in small pieces)
1 litre water with vegetable stock
1 ½ tbsp curry (I use rajah mild curry)
1/4 litre milk or some fresh cream
Yogurt
salt
pepper
1 onion (cut in pieces)
parsley

Method:

We add the onion in the pan with some oil and then the potatoes. Meanwhile we add the stock and the curry in a litre of hot water and add it to the pan . If the potatoes are not covered with water we add some more. We wait for 20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked and then we smash them with a mixer. When done we add the milk or the fresh cream, the salt, the pepper and the parsley and we let it boil for a minute or two and then we serve with yogurt.





You can also serve it without the yogurt but I think it tastes much better with it.







Enjoy it!!!
Mary
Cyprus

Hainanese Chicken Rice

This is a classic Singaporean Dish of poached chicken with rice infused with ginger & garlic. It was first sold here from immigrants from Hainan where mature chicken were used to maximize the amount of oil extracted. However, over the years, this recipe has evolved and today we use Kampong chicken (Free range chicken). It is not only more flavourful but more tender and juicy as well.

The ingredients you'll need are,

For the chicken

1 Whole chicken (Kampong/Free range preferably) Not too old as you want it to be tender and not too tough
1 thumb length ginger cut into 3 and slightly smashed
5 cloves of garlic, peeled
A bunch of spring onions
Chinese Rice wine (Shao Xing Jiu)

For the chicken Stock

Enough water to submerge the whole chicken
few cloves of garlic
one thumb size of ginger
a bunch of spring onions
A few Solomon's seal (Yuzhu)
A handful of wolf berries (Gou qi zhi)

For the rice

2 cups of rice
2 cups of chicken stock
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
3/4 thumb size ginger
a bunch of pandan leaves (Screw pine leaf)
chicken fat - YES CHICKEN FAT....It's a MUST

Chilli

5 large red chilli
3 chilli padi (bird's eye chilli, add more if you want it to be REALLLY spicy)
5 cloves of garlic
1 thumb size ginger
Zest from lime or kaffir leaves
some chicken stock
a dash of Sesame oil
pinch of salt depends on how salty you want it to be, adjust to your taste

Sauce for chicken

Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil

Method of cooking

Remove neck and "ass" fat from chicken and leave it aside. Rub the whole chicken with salt, give it a good massage and rub down, to clean the pores and remove all impurities on the chicken.

Rinse the salt off thoroughly. Rub the insides of the chicken with Chinese rice wine.

Stuff the cavity of chicken with ingredients for the chicken. Set it aside

In a pot, put enough water to submerge the whole chicken later. Put in some chicken bones/carcass, ginger, garlic and spring onions in the water and bring to boil. Keep it boiling for about 20mins to get the flavour of everything in the soup.

Put the whole chicken in, breast side down, keep it on a low boil for 5mins. Off the fire and leave it with lid on for 20-35mins. Poke a fork / chopstick through it, if it goes thru smoothly and comes out clear, chicken is ready.

Immediately submerge chicken in a big bowl of ice water (This is the stop the cooking process as well as give the skin of the chicken a better jelly texture) Leave it in the ice water for 10-15 mins.

Wash 2 cups of rice, drain the rice, ensure it's well drained.

Heat up a wok, throw in the chicken fat that you've set aside earlier. Fry it till the fat of the chicken has been extracted. Discard the remains of the chicken skin/fat.

Add mince ginger and garlic into the hot oil. Stir fry it on medium heat till it's fragrant. Do not brown it.

Add in the well-drained rice, stir fry till the rice grains turn opaque, sprinkle 2 pinch of salt to taste.

Transfer rice into a rice cooker, add the screw pine leaves and 2-2 1/2 cups of chicken stock. (Amount of water depends on how moist the rice grains were when you stir fry.  Cook the rice.

In the soup pot, you can now add in the wolf berries and solomon's seal. (This is something i added to add nutritional value to the soup.

Wolfberries is a natural supplement for improving eyesight especially if poor eyesight is caused by malnutrition, vessel expansion and inflammation. Consuming goji berries may help if you experience eye strain from staring at computer screens and documents for long periods of time. They are also beneficial for the liver. A healthy liver manifests in better looking eyes and vision. Traditional chinese medicine taught that any sickness in the liver can be observed from the eyes. For instance, people suffering from hepatitis or jaundice have very yellowish eyes.


Solomon's Seal It contains Vitamin A and is believed to be moisturizing and therefore an excellent herb for use in dry winters where skin tends to become very dry.  It is also used in the lowering of blood sugar levels and prevention of hardening of the arteries. Solomon's seal is believed to be excellent for alleviating a host of ills, including throat and lungs ailments. Excellent for diabetic patients suffering from thirst and dryness.


Optionally, you can just add in cabbage and fishballs into the soup too.

Wash and clean all the ingredients for the chilli,  put them in a blender, add in a dash of sesame oil and pinch of salt to taste, enough chicken stock to cover 1/3 of the ingredients in the blender.  Blend!  Voila...CHICKEN RICE CHILLI!!! :D

Remove chicken from ice water and let it air dry for about 30mins, you can do all these concurrently while you do the above.

Slice the chicken into your prefered thickness, you can choose to keep the bone or debone it.

In a bowl mix soy sauce with a dash of sesame oil and drizzle this sauce on the chicken.

Serve with chicken rice and a bowl of soup and of cos chilli sauce.

Stay tuned to our blog as we bring you more recipes later this week. :)

Bon appetit!

Monica Eng

Singapore

How to keep Natural Herbs fresh for longer

Hey :)

I have a tip for you!

I chopped the parsley today and I left it on a kitchen towel to dry.
I think it needs about an hour and a half for it to completely dry. You can feel it. If it doesn't stick on your fingers then its dried.



Put it in a plastic bag with a zip. Make sure all the air is out and put it in the freezer.







Whenever you need parsley, you know where to find it, still fresh as the first day you bought it.

You can do this method for all of your herbs, for example mint, basil, etc.

Mary Savvidou
Cyprus

Pork Chop with Leek

I was thinking about creating a food blog for a year now and yesterday as I was talking to Monica on skype we discussed this idea further and decided that we want to do it. It will also feel that we are closer to each other.

ok lets go back to food.

Ingredients (serves 1):

1 pork chop (you can add 2 or 3 or 4 pork chops, depends on how many people you want to serve, you can adjust the rest of the ingredients accordingly)
1 leek
2 onions (cut into small pieces)
1 tomato (cut into small pieces)
1 spoon balsamic vinegar (2 spoons for 4 people)
2 bay leaves
olive oil
salt
pepper


Method:

1. Cut the leek into big chunky circled pieces

2. Boil it in a pan for about 5 minutes
3. Remove them but keep the water in a glass

4. In a pan add olive oil and wait for it to get the right heat so that you can add the pork chop in the pan to get some color from both sides. When it gets color from both side you should remove it and put it in a plate.

5. In another pan put some olive oil until hot and then add the leek and the onions until they get soft. When they get soft you add the pork chop, the tomato, the balsamic vinegar, the bay leaves, salt and pepper and 3/4 of the glass of the water you kept from the leek.

6. you lower the heat to minimum and you wait for an hour.
7. You can serve it with a bit of lemon

For the potatoes

Ingredients:
1-4 potatoes (depends on the people)
salt
chilly powder
water

Method:

1. You boil the potatoes for 20-30 minutes until soft.
2. You put them in a plate and you start smashing them.

3. You add salt and a teaspoon of water and when they are ready you add chilly powder on top.

Enjoy!!
Mary Savvidou
Cyprus

Gordon Ramsay's Salmon in Mint Pea Puree

I love salmon. And after seeing Mary's attempt on Gordon Ramsay's Salmon in Mint Pea Puree, It had my mouth watering for days.... I just had to try this recipe myself. I made a little adjustment thou as i've ran out of mint leaves. So i've used crispy bacon as a topping to the salmon instead. I figured Peas and Bacon went well together. And it was sinfully goooood!!!

For the health conscious individuals, you could steam the salmon for 5 mins in a steamer instead of pan frying it like I did. If you're steaming the salmon, serve with skin side down.

The recipe below serves 4

INGREDIENTS
4 Salmon fillets, each about 100-140g
Olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
Large handful of mint (about 6 sprigs), leaves only
500g frozen peas
A few knobs of butter
200g creme fraiche

Method of cooking

1. To cook the salmon fillets, heat a non-stick frying pan until hot and add 1-2 tablespoons olive oil. Fry the salmon, skin side down, for 3 minutes. Flip over and cook the other side for 1-2 minutes. The flesh should be slightly springy when pressed. Season lightly.

2. Add the mint leaves to a medium pan of boiling salted water. Bring back to the boil, then add the peas and blanch for 2–3 minutes until they are just tender and bright green. Drain, reserving the liquor.

3. Tip the peas and mint into a blender. Add just enough of the reserved liquor to cover the peas and whiz to a smooth, bright green purée. Add the butter and all but 4 tbsp crème fraîche. Season and pulse for a few seconds to combine.

4. To serve. Place the salmon off centre and spoon the pea puree next to the salmon. Accompany with a dollop of crème fraîche.

Preperation time - 10mins.

The cooking time above is for a Medium rare Salmon. Crispy on the outside yet moist and tender inside...YUM....

Bon Appetit!
Monica Eng
Singapore