During our weekly Cooking Club, we take turns showing two dishes. Earlier last week, it was Andreas turn. I have blogged about the Beef and Noodle dish earlier. This one is about her other dish which she called simply Tomato Soup.

This soup goes well with some crusty bread or crackers.

Ingredients

• 1 or 2 onions, chopped
• 2 tablespoons of oil
• 2-3 lbs tomatoes
• 2-3 tablespoons tomato paste (optional)
• 2 carrots, cut into coins
• 1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Andrea started off with sauteeing the onions in a sauce pan with the oil.  When the onions were soften and translucent, took about 5 minutes, she added the carrots and the tomatoes and sauteed them for another 5 minutes.  The tomato paste were added to increase the intensity of the tomato flavour.  Then water is added to the sauce pan, just enough to cover the vegetables.  This has to be brought to a boil and simmered until the vegetables are soften, about 15 minutes.

Once the vegetables are soften, she added the parsley and cooked for another 5 minutes. She then seasoned the soup with some salt and pepper.

Lastly, she pureed the soup using a hand blender.  This is a very healthy soup and it’s a good way to encourage kids to eat

Andreas, thanks for showing us the Tomato Soup and the Beef and Noodle.

No matter if you eat a little or a lot of garlic, the smell is just as strong.
~ Tibetan Proverb

Bah Kut Teh (Hokkien for “pork rib tea”) is a soup served in Malaysia and Singapore. Story has it that it originated from a town in Malaysia called Port Klang. Generally it is cooked in a clay pot with various parts of the pig, varieties of mushroom, lettuce, and dried tofu sheets or tofu puff. The soup itself is a broth which consists of several herbs and spices (including star anise, cinnamon, cloves and garlic) which have been boiled together with meat for many hours. Light and dark soy sauce are also added to the soup during cooking, with varying amounts depending on the variant.

Bah Kut Teh is commonly eaten with rice, and particularly in Malaysia, often served with strips of fried dough called Yau Char Kwai (or Youtiao in Mandarin). Dark soy sauce is used as a condiment, sometimes accompanied with chopped chilli padi, which is ultra hot that it can kill your taste buds! Tea is also usually served in the belief that it dilutes or dissolves the copious amounts of fat which are consumed in the eating of this dish.

This dish is normally served as breakfast or brunch but over time has gained acceptance as a dinner dish.

Ingredients

• 1 kg of pork meat
• 1 package of fried tofu puff
• 1 package of dried bean curd stick
• 8 pieces of dried shiitake mushroom
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 1 package of Bah Kut Teh seasoning mix

The ingredients above is sufficient to make 8 servings. Be warned, this is a lot of food. We normally make it once and eat them over two days. You can use chicken to substitute the pork but not beef. For this time, I use pork shoulder meat but if you prefer something leaner, you can use pork ribs instead.

Condiments

1. 1 pair of fried dough (you may find this in Chinese Bakery)
2. Garlic
3. Thai chilli

Instruction

First of all, soak bean curd stick and dried shiitake mushrooms to soften them. The bean curd sticks and mushrooms are dry and hard.  This will take about 15 minutes to soften them.

The pork is cut into bite-sized chunks — any size you prefer. We like it in bigger chuncks.  Cut off the fatty part if you don’t like the meat with too much fat.

Here they are, the meat all cut up and ready for cooking.

Bah Kut Teh has a very strong garlic flavour.  Be warned, your breathe will smell of garlic after the meal.  We used eight cloves of garlic but you may use lesser or more depending on how much garlic you like or can stomach.

For the seasoning mix, we use the “A1″ seasoning mix.  We bought it from the chinese stores in Richmond. It’s quite common in those stores.  The A1 Bah Kut Teh seasoning mix contains of 2 separate packets, sufficient to make 8 servings each.  We only used one packet of the seasoning mix.

You need two pots.  The first pot is where you boil the broth and another to blanch the ingredients.In the first pot, bring about 8 cups of water to a boil.  Once boiling, throw in a packet of Bak Kut Teh seasoning mix with the packaging (don’t tear the packaging) and the cloves of garlic.

At the meantime, bring the second pot of water to a boil.  You use this pot to blanch the tofu puff for 30 seconds to get rid of the excess oil.  I normally cut the tofu puff into half for better absorbtion of flavor.

Remove and set aside the blanched tofu puff. We will add in the tofu into the main pot prior to serving.

I suggest that you blanch the meat for a couple of minutes to remove excess fats. This cleans up the meat too.

After two minutes of blanching, transfer the meat to the main Bah Kut Teh soup pot. The meat will need to be cooked for another 30 minutes. This is to soften the meat further.

These are the seasonings to flavor the soup and to darken the broth. They are: 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce 2 tablespoon of light soy sauce 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce salt to taste

The seasoning are added to the Bah Kut Teh soup following the meat.  Simmer the meat for 30 minutes in medium heat for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add in the mushroom, tofu puff and beancurd stick that you soften earlier.

Simmer for another 15 minutes and … ta da … the Bah Kut Teh soup is ready to be served.

To enjoy Bah Kut Teh, the most important condiments are: chopped Thai chilli chopped garlic with dark and light soy Warning: Do not eat this dish with the raw garlic if you have a date later.

You know, I think this is an acquired taste. Malaysians and Singaporeans loves this dish. What do you think, honestly?

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
~ Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 - 1826)
~ French gourmet & lawyer

Suanne’s favourite show … oh, I mean to say, Suanne’s OTHER favourite show is the Iron Chef. She roots for Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi. The Iron Chef show always starts with the above quote. So, with the words “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are”, here is Suanne’s first presentation. Suanne prepared a steamboat (better known as Hot Pot in Canada) for our January 1st, 2006 dinner. Her thoughts is only with Nanzaro and Arkensen and prepared what they like best (meatballs!). Here are the stuff she prepared for the pot: Marinated thinly sliced pork. Suanne says that her marinate is very complicated and cannot be described on the internet.

This is Arkensen and Nanzaro’s favourites consisting of artificial crab stick, fish balls and pork balls:

This one is for the resident daddy: fried tofu puff (tofu pok?) and inoki mushrooms.

Then we have the staples: Suey Choy, and Vermicelli

The most important part of a great hot pot is the sauce. Suanne used the Bull Head BBQ Sauce mixed with Soya Sauce and some chilli sauce. Also some parsley and ginger. Here is how it looks like:

We use one of those divided pots that people used to prepare two separate types of broth. Suanne bought some “buatan Malaysia” Tom Yam powder but it was not really good (no taste at all). I mean, tom yam are meant to be really spicy right?

Lepas itu, appoint a very patient flame watcher:

And finally … Ta da!!

Enjoy!