Ban Mian 面粉馃

Ban Mian 面粉馃 (Soup Base)

Its been some time since my last post and I felt really bad about it because I should and I could have write more but I am just plain lazy and unmotivated. So, today I am gonna write a quick post about a dish that has a special place in my heart and I can say its one of my comfort food. This dish never fails to put a smile on my face whenever I see it on my dining table.

Ban Mian is also know as Min Fan Gao (in cantonese) and its quite a popular dish in Malaysia and Singapore. In Singapore, the dough its more commonly found in noodles type whereas in Malaysia it comes in different odd  shapes and most importantly it must be FLAT!

The preparation for this dish is divided into 3 parts; the dough, the condiments and the soup.

Ingredients:

Soup:
For quick and easy soup, you can just use those cube anchovies. 1 cube can make a pot of soup enough for 3 pax. For healthier version, you can check out how to make soup using Fried Anchovies.

Condiments for my Ban Mian

Condiments:
Cai Xin - blanch
Anchovies - Fried till crispy
Minced Meat - Marinated with oyster sauce
Meat Balls
Chilli Padi
Minced Garlic
Mushroom (Optional)
Eggs (Optional)

Dough:
Plain flour
Water
Salt

When I was googling for other Ban Mian recipe online, I realized that mine was lacking of mushroom and egg, which I think its really important to this dish. Well, when I have time to have another go and this dish, I'm gonna make sure I don't miss them out again!

Instructions:

Kneading of dough (a video will be updated soon for easier reference)

Soup:

Heat up a medium sized pot with some oil

Sauteed minced garlic till fragrant and pour in 3 bowl of water (750ml to 1 litre)
Put in 1 anchovy cube and let it boil for 20 minutes
Put in meat balls to boil and set aside

Preparation of condiments:

Boil a pot of water and put in some salt

Blanch cai xin and set aside

Marinate minced meat with 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce and add in 1 teaspoon of flour. Scoop minced meat in a ball shape and boil it in hot water for 5 minutes and set aside.

Fried anchovies and set aside.

Ready to cook!
Bring a small pot and place in soup

Heat up and start putting the dough (by pulling small pieces from the main dough and flatten it) into the soup

When the dough starts to float up, (it indicates that the dough is cooked) start putting in all the condiments except for the crispy anchovies

Let it boil for one last time and scoop up
Put in the fried anchovies and its ready to serve!

There you go.. My comfort food.. Is it yours as well??

Fried Ikan Billis (Anchovies)

Ever wonder how you can prepare a good bowl of soup in 25 minutes without using MSG or those ikan billis or chicken stock?? Well, Aaron going to teach you how and you will be surprise that how easy it is to cook!

Anchovies have plenty of health benefits that are valuable to people of all ages. They are rich in calcium, protein, Vitamin D and Vitamin E as well. It is said that three tablespoons of anchovies will give you about 180mg of calcium, which is about one-fifth of an adult's daily calcium requirement. You can read more about the health benefits of anchovies here http://hubpages.com/hub/Health-Benefits-of-Anchovies.

Here are the ingredients: (serves 2)

A handful of anchovies

Oil (4~5 tbsp)

You might need a small air tight container to store the fried ikan billis like the one shown in my picture on the left.

Directions:

Wash and soak the anchovies (as the dried variety has high salt content)

Dry it using a paper towel (If you need it to dry at a faster pace, heat up the wok without putting any oil and dry it using the heat of the wok)
Heat up the wok and pour in the oil

Once the oil is hot, place all anchovies into the wok and fry it

Reduce the heat as you don't want to over fry the anchovies

Once the anchovies turn to golden brown and crispy, remove and drain the oil from it

Cool and store in bottle

Note: Try not to store it for too long (not more than 3 days) as the the oil in the fried anchovies will spoil the taste.

You can use these fried anchovies to boil soup or as a topping on your fried rice, noodle or you can even eat it on its own. If you are planning to use it as a topping up, it is best to use those that are freshly fried rather than those that you stored in container. For me, I used it (half the amount in the container) for my noodle soup by boiling the anchovies for a good 15~20 minutes and putting in all my favorite ingredients. And when the noodle was done, I put some on top my noodles as well.

The soup was really sweet and it has all the natural goodness of the anchovies packed in it. The additional fried anchovies made my noodle more tasty as well! Stay tune for my next post where I will show you how you can prepare a simple noodle soup using these fried anchovies. =)

Nothing left!!

Watercress (Xi Yang Cai) Soup

I believe that making soup is probably one of the easiest and not to mention healthy way to start learning how to cook. I started out my first cooking adventure with a soup dish (herbal chicken soup) and I hope that this can be your first as well!!

I went to the market this morning to get the ingredients that I used for my soup and I've listed the prices of my items cause I thought it will be very useful for my readers to gauge the expenses used for cooking a simple meal. =)

Ingredients: (Serve 2~3)

1 chicken breast ($2.30/piece) (you can request them to remove the skin of the chicken and have it cut into pieces)

1 chicken bone ($0.50/piece)

2 carrots ($0.80) (cut into small chunks)

1 bundle of watercress ($0.80)

A handful of wolf-berries

A pinch of salt

2~3 big bowl of water (around 1000ml)

Directions:

Rinse breast meat and bone with running water and removed any excess fats from the meat

Boil a pot of water and place the meat and bone into the pot once the water starts to boil

Boil for a minute and replace the water with a new pot of water (this is to remove those top layer of the meat and bone which might "dirty" your soup)

Once the new pot of water starts to boil, place breast meat, chicken bone, carrots and wolf-berries into the pot.

Continue to let it boil under medium heat for 20~30 mins

Reduce to low heat, put in the watercress and let it simmer for 60~80 mins
Add a pinch of salt for seasoning (you can skip this step if you wish to cut down on salt intake)
Dish out and serve!! (you can just serve with a bowl of white rice and "chilli-padi" for a meal!)

For those who prefer pork to chicken, you can replace the breast meat with spareribs.

The total damage for this dish is $4.40 only!! And it serves 2!! So, easy, healthy and economical!!  

Update: I've updated this post by adding some red dates 红枣 (4~5 pieces) in my soup. Red dates are said to have medical benefits such as protecting your liver and strengthening your muscles, so add a few into your soup to improve your health!