Curried Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Mr Redneck is quite fussy when it comes to pumpkin soup. We have tried various recipes and combinations but this is the one that have passed the test.

I was lucky that the garden managed to produce a few pumpkins last season and it stored well over the winter months. However one or two turned out to be the watery type which is good enough for soup. I usually make a whole pot to freeze for future lunches.

Nothing like a hot soup to warm up the body in the cold winter. Pumpkins are very healthy and is in the superfood category. If you don't add cream to this soup, this will turn out to be a non fattening yet delicious meal with very few calories.



Ingredients
1.5-1.8kg whole pumpkin

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp Baba curry powder
2 Tbsp tomato paste
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
¼ tsp salt

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Homemade Tau Fu Fa ~ Soy Bean Custard

Tau Fu Fa is a very popular chinese dessert eaten hot or cold. It is made from coagulated soya bean milk, served with a sugar syrup. And of course being soy, it has tons of nutritional value.

After many attempts at trying to reduce the gypsum content, I believe I have perfected the texture. The tau fu fa was so silky smooth that it just slides down the throat. So soft, it felt like almost like swallowing air.


I had to try and reduce the amount of gypsum to a bare minimum as I get the dreaded backache the following day. This is my favourite dessert so can't help but devour the lot in one day. Happy to report that the following recipe does not give me a backache and hence can eat as much as I like.

Makes : 1 Litre soy custard

Ingredients
1 Litre boiling fresh soy milk

Setting solution
1 Tbsp corn flour
½ level tsp gypsum powder (calcium sulphate)
¼ cup (63 ml) cold water

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Homemade Pure Essence of Chicken

As kids I remember my mother brewing this for us whenever we were studying for our exams. Nowadays whenever I feel lethargic or have trouble getting a good night sleep I cook this to boost my energy levels.

This is chicken essence in its purest form with no added water. When I first cooked this, Mr Redneck did not believe I could get a bowlful of soup with just placing some chicken on top of a bowl. Trust me...at the end of 3 hours you will end up with a bowl of very nutritional soup.


Yield : 1 rice bowl

Ingredients
1 small skinny chicken or chicken pieces (1.2kg)

Utensils
chinese soup pot (fig 1)
rice bowl (fig 1)
metal rack or dish cloth
big stock pot

Method
1. Remove skin and all fat from the chicken. Cut the chicken into big chunks.

2. Lightly crush each chicken piece with a pestle or the back of a chopper (make sure you crush the bones as well).

3. Invert a rice bowl in the chinese soup pot (fig 2).

4. Place the crushed chicken on top of the rice bowl (fig 3). Cover with the lid.

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Har Meen ~ Prawn Noodles

I was really looking forward to eating this har meen. The trick to a good prawn noodle is to have a very tasty and flavoursome prawn stock. It took me months of religiously collecting every bit of prawn heads and its shells to make the base.

For me this har mee recipe is an easier version as I used my homemade red curry paste which I have a ready supply in my freezer to spice up the dish . Instead of yellow fresh mee, I substituted with dried noodles as it is more readily available.



Yield : 2 bowls

Ingredients
1 tsp homemade red curry paste
2 cup prawn stock
1 chicken drumstick
12 raw prawns
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp soy sauce
fresh yellow noodle or dried noodle
handful ngah choy (bean sprout)
chives or spring onions
fried onions

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Chicken Soup

On a cold winter day like today with the cold southerly wind blowing and the sun on strike, there's nothing more welcoming than a bowl of hot soup.

I have used chicken drumstick for this chicken soup as there is more meat and I prefer the texture of the drumstick. The chicken meat for this chicken soup is not wasted as it is served as part of the soup.


Ingredients
1 kg chicken

Vegetables (cut into big chunks)
3 garlic cloves
2-3 celery stalks
1 small parsnip
3 carrots
3 potatoes
1 bunch of green onions or 1 medium white onion
3-4 springs of parsley.

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