Chinese Spinach in Superior Stock (上汤苋菜)

This soup base Chinese Spinach is a popular dish which uses 3 different types of eggs (century egg, salted egg and the egg white), fried anchovies as toppings on top of the Spinach.

This dish is one of my favorite vegetable dish when I eat out at Cze Char shop because of its unique flavor and its also partly a soup dish as well so its like ordering 2 dishes in 1! Cost savings!!

I am proud to say that I didn't refer to any recipe from the internet nor did I ask anyone for any tips on how to cook this dish. So, the style of cooking is uniquely Aaron's style. =)

Ingredients:
A bunch of Chinese Spinach

Stock:
300ml of water
A handful of dried anchovies (rinsed)
5~ 6 cloves of Garlic (fried in oil)
Dried Scallops (optional)

Toppings:
1 century egg (cubes)
1 salted egg (cubes) (boil the egg in boiling water for roughly 4~5mins)
2 eggs white
A handful of wolfberries
A handful of anchovies (fried till crispy)

Directions:
Making the soup/stock:
1. Bring the water to boil in a pot in high heat.
2. Once the water starts to boil, put in the dried anchovies and fried garlic cubes.
3. Turn to low heat and let it slow boil for roughly 30mins.
4. Add salt to taste.
5. Turn off heat after 30mins.

Steaming of the vegetables:
1. Place the Chinese Spinach in a deep plate.
2. Pour the soup/stock over the vegetables.
3. Sprinkle the cubed century egg, salted egg and wolfberries over the vegetables.
4. Place the plate in a wok with roughly 500ml (2 big bowls) for steaming.
5. Place the plate in the wok and steam it for 15mins.
6. Pour in the egg white over the vegetables and close the lid for 5 mins.
7. Sprinkle the fried anchovies over it and serve!!

Dumpling in Ikan Billis (Anchovies) Soup

I enjoy making dumplings and making your own dumplings has its benefits. For example, you can choose what type of ingredients you would like to have and what not to. For myself, I prefer to have some mushrooms and prawns as part of my ingredients as it enhances the texture and the flavor of my dumplings!! And besides putting water chestnuts to for the crunchy feel, I like to add in carrots as well because carrots are healthy stuff!

carrots, water-chestnuts and mushrooms

Ingredients: (22 dumplings)
Dumpling Skin
1 Skinless Breast Meat / Minced Meat (Pork or Chicken)
12 Prawns (De-shell, de-vein and cut into small pieces)
Half Carrot (Cubed)
4 Water Chestnuts (Cubed)
3 pieces of medium sized Mushrooms

this dumpling skin wasn't really good

Seasoning:
4 tsp Oyster Sauce
Salt & Pepper
1 Egg White
Corn Starch

Ikan Billis (Anchovies) soup:
Fried anchovies
2 stalks of Cai Xin
1 bowls of water (approx. 500ml) 

Garnishing:
Green Onions / Coriander leaves
Fried onions and garlic

Directions:

Making the dumpling:
Mash the chicken breast using the back of your cleaver till the meat turn soft (you can skip this step if you are using minced meat but a friend once told me that minced meat are not healthy as the meat use are not fresh and you have no idea which part of the meat were used to mince it)

Mix all the ingredients into a bowl
Add in seasoning and mix the ingredients evenly
Scoop a small amount (roughly 11/2 tsp) of the mixture on a dumpling skin
Wrap the dumpling by applying a thin layer of egg york on the edge of the dumpling skin in order for the skin to stick against each other
Continue to do so until you either run out of dumpling skin or meat

Boiling of soup:

Bring a pot of water (approx. 500ml) to boil

avoid putting too much filling

Pour in a handful of fried ikan billis
Let it simmer in low heat for 20 minutes
Add a pinch of salt
Add in 5~7 dumplings
Add in Cai Xin
Close the the wok with a lid and let the dumpling cook for 7 minutes
Once you notice that the dumplings are floating, it's a sign that the dumplings are cooked!!
Dish out into a bowl
Garnish the soup with some coriander, fried onions and garlic
Serve!!

The meat of my dumpling was not tender and fragrant enough and that is probably because I didn't a good job pounding the breast meat and marinating it. Even so, I still thoroughly enjoyed the dumplings and wished you are able to share it with me. =)

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!