Asian Style Home Made Chicken Soup

There is nothing more comforting and healing than a bowl of hot and yummy noodle chicken soup to sooth an unwanted cold and warm your body from the cold weather outside. Since two days now both my husband and I are having a bit of a cold, he worst than I do. Yesterday we decided maybe a hot chicken soup would do us good. My husband loves to cook soup – right from scratch; even his cold didn’t stop him from doing it. At the beginning, I thought the work and all the ingredients (and the mess) were too much to produce a little bit of soup. But the resulting home made soup is better than any instant soup from the shop. And so we (he) regularly get creative in the kitchen and make some delicious soups that lifted our moods. Well for this we are actually a team, he prepares the basic soup and then the rest is my part. For this recipe, it will need a little bit of time, but at the end it is worth all the efforts. I recommend doing this recipe on two separate days.

Day 1. The Basic Chicken Soup

Source: Own creation (ala Thorsten)

Soup Ingredients

500 gr – 1 kg chicken bones (e.g. necks, breast bones)

2 large onions

3 large carrots

2 medium parsley roots

¼ celeries roots

1 large leek

5 cm ginger

1-tablespoon vegetable oil

1-teaspoon whole peppercorns

2 cloves of garlic

2 – 3 litres of water

Steps

1. Clean and chop all the vegetables into chunky pieces.

2. Cut onion into half (including the hard skins). The brown skins help to give the soup its colour.

3. Heat a large heavy stockpot and put the onion half on cut sides down and let them brown (almost burnt). This will give the soup a lovely brown colour.

4. Add the oil and the rest of the vegetables. Stir until they start to sweat. Add the chicken bones to the mix. Stir together and add the water. Cook for 2 – 3 hours or use a pressure cooker to save time. Cooking it slowly is probably the better way to produce a more tasty soup.

5. Note: cooking it slowly will require that once in a while we need to spoon out the bubbles from the top to keep the soup clear. The bubbles will come to the surface once the water start to boil.

6. After letting the soup cooked for 2-3 hours, pour the soup through a sieve into another top to take all the bones, vegetables and herbs out of the soup. Let the soup stand to cool and then overnight in the fridge (or in winter time put it outside in the veranda). The fat will stay on top, which has to be spooned out. But if you are not fussy, the fat can also stay. To leave the soup clearer, sieve it through a fine tea towel or cheesecloth. The amount of soup is enough for 4 – 6 large bowls of soup. Use as much as needed and keep the rest in the freezer or fridge for another time.

Day 2.  Being Creative and Arranging Favourite Ingredients for the soup

Seasonings for an Asian Style Chicken Soup

1 lemon grass

2 slices of galangal

4 kaffir lime leaves

chillies (optional, according to taste)

3 coriander roots

salt and pepper

Accompanying Ingredients

Noodles (egg or rice noodle according to preference)

2 chicken breast fillets

Blanched Vegetables

1 carrot

2-3 bunch of bak choi or pak choi

1 small tin of bamboo shoot

A handful of baby sweet corns

Other vegetables (e.g. capsicum, snow peas) can also be used

Herbs and Row Ingredients

A handful of mug bean sprouts (optional)

Spring onions

Coriander leaves

Celeries leaves

Fresh red chillies (optional)

Steps

7. Season chicken fillets with salt and pepper, then shear them slightly on both sides on a hot pan until slightly brown with a couple of garlic. Transfer chicken fillets into alu foil, with the garlic, add lemon grass and some lemon juice. Seal the chicken inside the foil (like an envelop) and bake in the oven at 100^o C for 30 minutes. Take chicken out of the oven and let it rest for 5 minutes. Before serving, cut chicken fillets into bite sizes.

8. We are making an Asian style soup, so to tune the basic chicken soup; I added the lemon grass, slices of galangal, kaffir lime leaves, coriander roots, salt, pepper and chillies. Bring the soup to a boil, ready for serving.

9. Noodles (e.g. ramen, udon, egg noodles or rice noodle).  Our favourite is udon noodle and secondly ramen. Prepare according the factory instructions

10. Cut the vegetables to bite sizes and blanche them in salted boiling water. To stop the cooking process and keep the colour of the vegetables – once ready take them out from the boiling water and run them under icy water. The vegetables are optional: reduce, add or omit as desired.

11. Clean and prepare the row ingredients ready for serving. They are served on top layer like decorations.

12. Arrange noodles, vegetable and chicken pieces into a soup bowl. Add the boiling soup over it. Top it up with been sprouts, and other herbs and chillies according to liking. Serve and enjoy!

Note: When using an instant soup bouillon, follow the steps from 7 to 12. The resulting soup will still be very good but not as good as with home made chicken bouillon (in my opinion J). 

Chocolate Mousse Indulgence

A while back, I was watching an evening ‘current affair’ program. My German is not that perfect at the moment, but when it comes to cooking, I can follow it without any problem. My attention was fully engaged with eyes locked onto the TV screen and ears and brain set into listening, translating and understanding when a challenge on who can create the better chocolate mousse came on. The challenge was between a young woman who has probably not much experience in cooking and a professional chef. Of course I already knew the answer, but it was interesting to watch. I love chocolate mousse and have eaten it often, but I never come to the idea of making one myself. I was amused to see how the young woman made one mistake after the other in her attempt to create this dessert. She made scramble eggs instead of whipped egg yolks and her chocolate was clumpy and she added coconut liqueur instead of cognac, which come together into an off putting chocolate mud thingy. At the same time the professional chef showed how it should be done properly to create the smooth and indulgence mousse. My husband, who was also watching, commented that he loves chocolate mousse. He is usually not a dessert kind of guy and dislikes anything too sweet.

As it was approaching Christmas (2010) and since I was hooked on baking and has still plenty of baking ingredients (although I had baked tons of Christmas biscuits), I decided to give the chocolate mousse a go. The recipe that I remembered from the TV show was rather a lot (6 eggs). I know that when I make too much there will be complaint coming from hubby. So I reduced the ingredients to a third and I didn’t use an expensive Lindt dark chocolate, simply the left over chocolate couverture I had in the pantry. I thought that when it turns into a big messy ugly mud, I haven’t wasted much. Turns out, it was so delicious that we couldn’t stop with only one serving.

Here I made it again for a second time and it came out perfect. I have reduced the sugar to only 2 teaspoons as husband like it a bit bitter, without extra sugar it should be sweet enough as there is sugar already in the chocolate. The amount of chocolate mousse resulting from this recipe is still enough for a generous portion for 4 people.

Chocolate Mousse

Recipe: adapted from a TV cooking show

Ingredients:

200gr dark chocolate

200gr whipped cream

2 eggs separated

2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup espresso

4cl cognac

a couple drops of vanilla essence

Steps:

1. Cut or break the chocolate into small pieces. Melt chocolate in a stainless steel bowl over hot water. The bowl must not touch the water surface. Once the chocolate is completely melted, stir to smooth it out and set aside.
2. Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks. Beat egg whites until foamy and stiff. Set aside and keep cool in the fridge.
3. Whipped the cream until set and keep cool in the fridge.
4. Whipped egg yolks with sugar and vanilla essence.
5. Pour the egg yolks mixture into the chocolate mix. Once you start mixing other ingredients into the slightly warm chocolate mix, the chocolate might start to get clumpy but don’t worry too much simply keep mixing to smooth it out again. I use wooden spoon to mix the ingredients through.
6. Add the espresso and cognac and mix until the ingredients come together smoothly.
7. Add the whipped cream, mixing thoroughly and slowly into the chocolate mixture.
8. Lastly fold the whipped egg whites into the chocolate mixture, a little at a time, mix it thoroughly until all egg whites are used.
9. Set aside the chocolate mixture to set in the fridge. It takes 4 or more hours. It is better to make the mousse and serve it the next day.

To serve it in a traditional way, use a spoon that has been wetted with hot water. This helps the mousse to slide off easily into the serving plate. It can also be served in individual glasses. To do this, pour the not yet set chocolate mixture into the glasses and then keep them in the fridge to set.