Chef for the day

I was so proud of myself being able to wake up early in the morning (at 7am) on a Saturday to accompany my mom to the market. Usually I only do that when my mom is overseas. Yesterday I was in my mojo and it's the day to cook something new!

The both of us went to the market with 2 baskets and we both came home with our both hands full of goodies such as a spring chicken, some pork belly, vegetables, cikus and some nice herbs which I intend to make the most of it when mom isn't around.

My first attempt was to boil a soup which I've not done before. I think I've gotten bored of my own ABC and winter melon soup. It's time for a change because I read this wonderful book of soups and there's just so many that I've yet to try. And so I thought, why not start with something simple?

Dried Fig and Pork Soup
It's a clear, sweet soup with a little porky taste.

The ingredients for this soup is pretty simple, maybe the simplest I've ever seen because there's only 3 ingredients involved according to the original recipe - 500g Pork (upper leg meat), 15 dried figs & 2500ml water and some salt to taste. But instead of using the upper leg meat of the pig, I used the back bone, near to the pig tail. Mom has a box of dried figs from Turkey in the fridge and it's perfect!

The steps are pretty straightforward too. I boiled a pot of water and let the pork bone simmer for 5 minutes before removing them from the pot. The dried figs are also washed and slightly cut on the sides so that the flavours from the figs can be absorbed by the soup easily. I used a double boil pot where the water in the pot is already boiled before I add in the pork and figs. After that, I double boiled it for 4 hours. After that, you can add some salt to the soup or it's good to be taken on its own too.



The results? You get a sweet and very clear soup because the soup is double-boiled. The secret is also in cooking the pork before adding to the soup to give it a clear soup effect. Besides that, it also removes the gamey taste from the pork. It's not Ziling's favourite because she doesn't like sweet stuffs. To me, I'm okay with the sweet soup because it tasted better with a pinch of salt.

For dinner, I wanted to do a healthy dinner without too much carbo and I thought of the "Kwai Fa Chi" which is actually fluffy scrambled eggs with vegetables and "sharks fin" if it's done in the restaurants but many have substituted it with the transparent rice vermicelli.

Eiling's own version of Kwai Fa Chi

It's actually very easy to prepare. I first check my fridge and see what I can use to make this dish. You can basically create your own recipe too. It's really that easy. For this recipe I used:

Carrots (thinky sliced)
Beansprouts
Firm tofu (mashed)
Shimeji mushrooms
Clear Rice Vermicelli
"kam wah foh tui" (chinese cured ham)
3 eggs
Lettuce

Seasonings
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of stock granules
1/2 tsp of sesame oil
1/2 tsp of light soya sauce
a dash of pepper
1/2 tsp of shaoxing wine

Firstly, beat 3 eggs in a bowl with the seasonings except the Shaoxing wine. Then add the eggs into the mashed the tofu. Heat up the pan with some oil and stir fry the carrots, mushrooms and the small dices of the chinese cured ham until it's fragrant. Then pour in the eggs mixture and stir it to avoid over burning of the eggs. Do it like how you would do a scrambled egg. Add in the rice vermicelli and the beansprouts and stir for a while before adding in the Shaoxing wine.



After that you can garnish the plate with a piece of lettuce and serve the dish over the lettuce. To eat, simply select a lettuce leave and then spoon some of the kwai fa chi into the lettuce. Wrap it up and eat! Ziling was the 1st guinea pig. According to her, it lacks the "wok hei" meaning the taste from a good stir fry from the big wok using a gas stove. It's true, I also felt the same. I didn't use a wok and I didn't use a gas stove.

But, at least it still look presentable!



I am determined to try again and this time I plan to add in some form of meat to give it a more meaty and robust taste to make up for the lack of "wok hei". Wish me luck!