[Cook] Sour Ginger Soup

I love Szechuan veges and I love soup. So I decided to make a nice hot sour soup, and I tossed in some ginger so it gives a nice warming feeling when you drink the soup.
Tofu and mushrooms are optional, toss in any extra ingredient as you like.

SOUR GINGER SOUP
Szechuan Vege	2 bulbs
Chicken stock	2 liters
White Peppercorn	1 tbsp
Ginger	3 knobs
Tofu	300g
Enoki Mushroom	100g x2

STEPS

- Crush peppercorns and ginger, throw into cheesecloth bag

- Soak Szechuan vege in water for about 30-45mins. Remove and cut into slices. Rinse thoroughly.

- Bring stock to boil then reduce to simmer, put in bag.

- Let simmer for about 15mins, throw in Szechuan vege

- Let simmer for about 20 mins, taste and season as needed.

- Throw in mushrooms and simmer for another 15 min.

- Throw in tofu and simmer for another 5 mins. DONE

Really loved this soup, a good balance of good chicken stock, ginger and sourness from the Szechuan vege.

[Cook] Hot & Sour Soup

There is just something appetizing about a hot spicy and sour soup.

I am not referring to the ever famous Tomyam, but rather its Chinese cousin.
This recipe was inspired by Amy In The Kitchen 

INGREDIENTS

Item	Recipe
Japanese pressed tofu	400g
Dried Mushroom	75g
White rice vinegar	50ml
Soya sauce	50ml
Chicken stock	~1200ml
Cili padi	10
Corn starch	3 heaping tbsp
Eggs	2

STEPS

- Soak mushrooms in hot water for 30mins

- Add chicken stock into pot and let simmer.

- Toss in cili padi, mushrooms and pour in mushroom water. 

  When pouring in mushroom water, be careful to leave the sediments out. Best to filter if possible.
 * For the cili padi I simply cut off the top and toss in whole. It allows me to easily pick them out later

- let simmer for 5 to 10 mins.

- Mix corn starch with approximately equal amounts of water and add to pot. 

- let simmer for 5 to 10 mins. Add starch if needed.

- While soup is simmering, beat eggs in a separate bowl and gently stir into pot

- Add tofu and spring onions and simmer for another 5 min.

- Serve and garnish with a sprinkle of Spring onion

The result is a delicious and fairly simple to cook soup.

*** These are cooking notes/experiments and are not perfect recipes.

[Cook] Szechuan Vegetable Soup

I have recently been craving for a good bowl of soup. A nice flavor-packed-slurp-down-till-the-last-drop soup. Browsing online I bumped into a nice tomyam recipe. Gonna save this for later.

But this time I have decided to go for a pork based soup with my favourite Szechuan preserved vege. 
Didn't really find any interesting recipes of the net so I have decided to just wing it.
Definite must haves are the pork bones and Szechuan preserved vege.
Inspired by the tomyam recipe, I decided to add in mushrooms and chillies.
Of course a smattering of Chinese wolfberries to make it "healthy".

INGREDIENTS

Pork bones	476g
Szechuan vege	2 balls(?) about the size of a tennis ball
Enoki Mushrooms	as you like
Straw Mushrooms	as you like
Baby spinach	as you like
Taufu	as you like
Goji Wolfberry	as you like

STEPS
- Boil pork bones in a pot for about half an hour. Dump the water.
- Move pork bones to slow cooker, fill with water and cook on high for 2 hours.
- Set to low and cook overnight.
- Rinse and soak Szechuan vege in bowl of water for 20mins.
- Cut and add to slow cooker. Add a couple of cili padi. Cook for another hour.
- Taste soup, adjust as necessary ( add salt etc).
- When soup is ok throw in any added ingredients. Mushrooms, spinach and tofu for me.
- Wonderful soup is ready!


Overall nice soup. Pork taste wasn't as strong as I'd like.

*** These are cooking notes/experiments and are not perfect recipes.

[Food] Grand Shanghai Food Theme Park @ Setia Walk

Beautifully decorated, the Grand Shanghai was a really awesome place to visit. It was a joy walking around in this beautiful replica of old Shanghai streets. A very photo friendly place. They even have costumes for rent so you can take pics. Cool.

We eventually settled for this shop below. Even the waiters were dressed in costumes!

Food thankfully was also good. Simple, delicious and healthy Chinese food. Noodles were served in a lotus root and peanut soup. The watercress soup was nice and flavorful.

Simply soup noodle with brinjal in minced meat.

Watercress soup. Good and flavorful

As we continued wandering around this wonderful world of Shanghai we had some interesting snacks. Taste-wise though they were not great.

Giant squid! Just novelty. Taste bla.

 Kindori ice cream stall had a queue and so we gave it a try. Decent but nothing to shout about. Maybe it was the nice way the ice creams were presented? They has ice-cream biscuits, lollys, cakes. We only had the biscuit.

Address 

Level 4 of the "Mall building" part of Setia Walk, Puchong.

Hours 

Mon - Sun: 12:00 pm - 10:00 pm  

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