While slow-cooked soup (or bone broth) is typical in my family’s everyday dinner, this particular soup is not. Double-boiled black chicken soup is seen more as medicinal dish than everyday food.

I haven’t had this for a while until two weeks ago; my brother’s girlfriend just recovered from dengue and we made this nutritious chicken soup for her. “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food”, a quote commonly attributed to Hippocrates, is what my family practices.

TOOLS

• Slow-cooker
• Food carrier pot or ceramic pot for double boiling
• Pot/Pan/Wok (to blanch chicken)

RECIPE CARD

SHORT RECIPE

Blanch 500 g chicken in hot water. Place cleaned chicken + 30 g of American ginseng + 12 g of solomon’s seal + 12 g of wolfberries + 3 cups of water into a pot with lid. Put the pot into a slow-cooker. Fill the slow-cooker with water until it covers half the pot. Cook on ‘HIGH’ for 4 hours.

TIPS

1. Instapot, electric steamer, or stove. If you don’t have a slow-cooker, you can do it in an Instapot or an electric steamer too.
2. Use a ceramic inner pot, or any pot that you have with a lid that can be fit into a bigger pot Traditionally, a ceramic inner pot is used to make this soup. Although we have that also, we prefer to use our stainless steel Zebra pot; it’s much more convenient. Even if you can’t finish the soup, you can keep in the fridge and immediately heat it on an induction cooker/stove directly.

Despite this being a ‘medicinal’ soup, it tastes delicious! After learning all about its benefits and realising how easy it is to make it,  I’m thinking of making this monthly since I’ve been overworking recently and need a boost of energy.

If you or a loved one need something delicious to strengthen the body, try this recipe!

The post Black Chicken Herbal Soup with American Ginseng appeared first on New Malaysian Kitchen.

When I was living alone and at the busiest point of my life, lentil curry is something I made very often. I make a big pot, separate it in small containers, and freeze them!

ABOUT LENTIL CURRY

In Malaysia, lentil curry (dal curry) is not only enjoyed by the Malaysian-Indian community; every Malaysian loves it! We love eating it at the Mamak (Indian-Muslims restaurant) with roti canai, the Malay word for prata or flat bread.

At home, we eat it with rice too. This recipe is taught to me by Aunty Clara, she cooks this ‘kari dal’ (lentil curry) for her family a few times a week. I first published her recipe here and in my cookbook.

SIMPLIFIED: 25 minutes including preparation, washing, and roti canai!

But this time, I’ve simplified it. Originally she uses dried chillies, fresh red chillies, and milk. I omitted all that. So this dhal curry is not only vegetarian, but also vegan. If you’re on a keto diet, this is perfect as it’s filling and rich in protein.

But I personally love it for its immense health benefits. The potent spices and rainbow coloured vegetables are so good for our body. The best thing is, you can make it in just 25 minutes!

While simmering the curry, I even have time to wash everything up and make a roti canai!

TOOLS

• pot with lid
• spatula
• Knife + chopping board

RECIPE CARD

SHORT RECIPE

COOKING TIPS

1. Mixed Spice is called ‘Halba Campur’ in Malay. You can use mustard seeds as a replacement. Find out more about the mixed fenugreek spice or talipu here. 

Watch the video for more random little tips 🙂

The post Easy Lentil Dhal Curry In 25 Minutes appeared first on New Malaysian Kitchen.

The post Fish Maw, Conch, and Scallop Soup in Slow-Cooker appeared first on New Malaysian Kitchen.

Clam Soup with Ginger is absolute favourite dish. Whenever I visit a Chinese seafood restaurant, I must order lala soup and make sure that they use enough ginger and wine.

I’m glad that this dish is something that is easily replicated at home. The most important thing is to get fresh clams (preferably those that are still moving). The other important ingredients that you need are ginger, garlic, cili padi (bird’s eye chili), and Shaoxing wine.

If you really want to make this dish superb – use ikan bilis (dried anchovies) stock. Water and ikan bilis stock, in my opinion, cannot compare.

TOOLS

• Wok/pan/pot with lid + spatula
• Knife + chopping board
• Stove

RECIPE CARD

SHORT RECIPE

Soak 600 g clams in 1 L water + 2 tbsp salt, soak for a few hours and rinse. Fry 20 g julienned ginger and 3 cili padi. Add clams + 1.5 cups of ikan bilis stock (OR water with 1/2 tsp anchovies seasoning powder). Cover and bring to a boil. Season with white pepper + sea salt + 1 – 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine.

STEP-BY-STEP

1. CLEAN CLAMS: Place clams in a large mixing bowl. Pour in 4 cups (1 L) of water and 2 tbsp of salt. Place in the refrigerator and soak for a few hours. During this time, clams will spit out sand. Pour out sandy water, rinse clams in a fresh pot of water, and drain. Repeat a few times until the water is clear.

2. PREP: Peel and slice ginger into long, thin strips. Deseed cili padi and slice.

3. FRY AROMATICS: Heat oil on medium fire. Stir-fry ginger and chili until aromatic (1 minute).

4. COOK CLAMS: Add clams and two cups of water. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil. Once water boils, turn off the heat.

5. SEASON: Season with white pepper, fine sea salt, and Chinese Shaoxing rice wine. Serve hot.

COOKING TIPS

1. Choose fresh clams. To cook seafood, the most important thing is to get them fresh. Find out how to choose clams
2. Make anchovies stock If you can, use anchovies stock instead of water. Boil 50 g of ikan bilis in 1 L of water. If you use water, you will need to add ikan bilis powder to make it taste as good as those in restaurants. If you can, make your own using this recipe DIY ikan bilis stock powder.  If you are really not willing to make the extra effort, you can add a handful or about 3 tbsp of ikan bilis to fry with ginger and cili padi at step 3.
3. Do not overcook clams Once the water boils, the clams should be just cooked. If you keep simmering the soup, the clams will overcook and tastes too rubbery.
4. Omit Shaoxing wine to make it halal. For those who would like to keep this dish halal, you need not use Shaoxing wine. However, the taste is significantly different without it. I like mine with a lot of it

Note that this recipe is the easy/’lazy’ way.  When we want to make a GREAT clam soup, we will cook the clams first (saved the stock), then put into the soup at the very end. We would also make our own achovies stock and boil the soup for much longer to extra more flavour off the aromatics

If you think you can’t make restaurant-standard dishes at home (or better), try this one!

The post Easy Clam Lala Soup With Ginger & Cili Padi appeared first on New Malaysian Kitchen.

The post Herbal Chicken Soup for Good Eyesight & Memory appeared first on New Malaysian Kitchen.

Ingredients Information: Hyacinth Bean

Unlike commercialised vegetables such as long beans or spinach, I’ve never seen this bean at the supermarket (despite frequenting many different supermarkets due to my job as a food writer/recipe developer). It is occasionally seen at the wet market, but even so it is extremely rare. My family gets our supplies from our friend’s garden.

Hyacinth bean is a popular among the Indian community. It is used to making dhal and curries. In my family, we use it exclusively for soup. The flat green-beans gives a pleasant savoury-sweet flavour. Normally, we’ll make a huge pot of it and keep the leftover for another day – it tastes even better on the second day!

TOOLS

• Pot/ slow cooker
• Knife + chopping board

RECIPE CARD

SHORT RECIPE

Blanch 800 g of chicken bones. Add chicken bones + 350 g hyacinth beans + 25 g preserved vegetable + 10 red dates + 1/2 pcs dried squid + 1 tbsp goji berries + 2.5 L of water into the slow cooker. Cook on high for 3 hours.

Enjoy!

The post Hyacinth Bean Soup / Pang Pi Dou Tang (彭皮豆湯) – 7 Ingredients appeared first on New Malaysian Kitchen.