Clarity in keeping focused

This was clarity. After all the soups I've boiled, this was by far the clearest pot. 

This was a medium sized chicken, chicken breast used for poached chicken slices on soba.

The thigh and the wings were used for sesame oil chicken.

Which leaves the neck, ribs and feet, aside from all the bones reserved.

So I blanched those, chopped up some carrots, corn and red dates and threw them all into my inner thermal pot for a fierce boil before I added a tablespoon of salt (4- 4.5L of water) and transferred it over to the outer pot to cook in its reserve heat for about 1.5 hours. 

And there we have it, chicken soup for the soul. Clarity in keeping focused. 

From our kitchen to yours,

Brenda x

Salted vegetable duck soup | 咸菜鸭汤. Charcoal boiled. Souper Saturdays!

Ingredients:

 1/2 a duck (1 kg), chopped

 1 head of kiam chye, about 600g (salted vegetables), cut into large pieces

 3 whole garlic cloves, peeled

 5 thick slices of ginger

 Water

 A handful of white peppercorns, washed

 3 tomatoes, chopped into 8 pieces for each tomato.

 1 tsp of light soy sauce

Method:

1. Wash and rinse the salted vegetables

2. Clean duck and remove any remaining feather stubs. Remove fat as necessary. 

3. Fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. Blanch the duck to remove any crushed bones and blood trails. Take out the pieces and discard the water.

4. Fill a pot with water. I used about 5 litres of water in a large aluminium pot.

5. Place the salted vegetables, duck, garlic clove, ginger slices, white peppercorn and tomatoes.

6. Cover and boil over the charcoal stove.

7. Add 1 tsp of light soy sauce for added fragrance and a slight tinge of colour.

*I added a packet of soya beancurd after the soup was ready. :)

*Many recipes call for sour plums but it's fine to leave it out.

*I didn't soak my salted vegetables, which I bought from the wet market and the saltiness of the soup was just right for the amount of water I used.

*I had the pleasure of using a charcoal stove but this works well on the stovetops and pressure cookers. 

From our kitchen to yours,

Brenda x

Changi Airport Run

I never knew there was a Paradise Inn outlet hidden on the second floor of Changi Airport's Terminal 1. I was about to say I hadn't been at any of the Paradise Group outlets for a long while till I remembered I was just at their outlet at the Flyer in June.

A casual outlet, order forms are left on the table for diners to fill in before calling for the waitstaff. That wouldn't have been a point to note except we attempted to place our orders directly with the waitstaff. :p

And when they do come to repeat your orders before sending it into the kitchen, I was duly impressed with her memory of the items if only just by the 3 digit numbers that we wrote on the order form.

I'm no Cantonese but I love soup. Double boiled soup especially. pork rib with old yellow melon. Direct translations. That's double boiled pork rib with yellow melon soup. 

It's the first time I'm eating up all my soft bones full of collagen. :) *slurps.

Three egg spinach braised in superior stock. I could totally be cooking up the descriptions. That's century, salted and regular egg for you cooked with minced meat and spinach in a slurpingly delicious soup.

Carbo staples?

Just for the two girls, you gave up your selfish choice of a la mian.

Sorry!

And decided on seafood braised rice noodles.

Lacking in that umami flavour.

Braising has to be done with those canned pig trotters I swear.

And yay!

Venison.

I used to balk at the thought of eating deer.

Doesn't the image of Bambi with its pretty white striped head and spots make it pure cruelty to ingest?

But of course, with a taste reminiscent of beef, similar in protein but lower on all counts for calories, cholestrol and fat as compared to beef, lamb or pork... 

I'd choose venison anyday.

Love you tender. :)

And just for a coffee break.

We headed to Ritazza on the first floor of arrivals. It's behind Ru Yi and next to Watsons.

This latte was 95% steamed milk I kid you not.

But it was enough to keep us awake for awhile.

It's been awhile.

:)

having a gem of a friend. :)

The Youth Olympic Games were indeed Games like no other. It was a memorable time spent in the Protocol Division of Toa Payoh Sports Hall. The adrenaline rush, the heartache and tears of the fallen, the rise and victory of the winners, the pain of losing, the love of the Games. All that and more.

And I was blessed with a friend in Auntie Alice. Never have I met a woman who loves life more than life itself. She's not a youth but unafraid to chase her dreams. She took leave from her work to volunteer at the Games, even when her boss saw no reason for her to take part in something that was for youths. As a protocol officer, she took her role seriously, never too far from her work at hand. Shortly after the Games came to an end, I thought we'd have to part our ways and say our farewells.

But a Volunteer Day out at Universal Studios saw us back together again, from 7pm to 11pm, we played our hearts out on all the rides! She was fearless and game for everything. Even when we were soaked from the Jurassic Park ride. "I have an extra tee!" she chirps. :) She didn't want her meal and gave it up for me to bring home for my brothers. We signed up for the F1 race together, being the last two on the list to get complimentary passes and planned to meet again. But of course the organizers screwed up and we missed out on that.

Last year, I was over at her place on the last day of the Lunar New Year, well fed with a home cooked meal, good conversation with her family and even went with them to a temple at Loyang for them to pray for blessings for the year ahead. In the course of the year, events in our lives kept us from meeting up. But as life would have it, just as I was frantically looking for her contact number, I finally found her house number and called but was disappointed with the engaged tone. :(

Who knew, at that moment, I received a text from someone whose number I did not have records of and it had to be her! :)

So this year, she generously invited me over to her house again and whipped up some awesome culinary delights for me. Never stinging on quality and taste, she humbly serves up heartwarming homecooked food for her family and shares it with me. :)

Marrying a husband who's of the Cantonese dialect is the reason for these double boiled nourishing soups. :)

A light tasting seafood broth chock full of ingredients.

After a long day at school/ work, there's nothing like soup for the soul.

If I were her kids, I'd be home for dinner every night! :p 

These baby abalones are unbelievably tender and of good bite. At prices of 3 cans for a hundred, they don't come cheap either but the big pieces of abalones are no comparison to these little babies on taste! These were cooked in thickened oyster sauce gravy and immediately taken off the heat when it comes to a gentle boil. Blanched baby bok choy drizzled with gravy and topped with baby abalones. Never knew a simple dish with expensive ingredients could taste this good. Worth a shot for kids who don't like their greens maybe? :)

Leave some eggplants to boil and use a fork to gently shred them up into long strips. Served with thickened gravy. Ohyum. :)

Stir fried jumbo sized fresh gray prawns that are coated with a dollop of ketchup to add flavour and another layer of taste. Lick those shells clean!

What a sumptuous dinner. Shared with Auntie Alice and her husband.

A delightfully cute couple. A vision of married life to behold.

Of course it takes work on a daily basis but life's pretty good when you have a partner to share it with like the both of them :)

Now this, was a star. Eaten with eggplant or anything you like really. This was appetizing and fiery delish!

And with all the love in the world, she packs a little container for me to bring home.

And because new year with Auntie Alice is always something to be remembered-

this year, post dinner, we waited for her youngest son to come home with a whole group of his lion dance troupe members from Thailand. All 15 of them. And everything else you could imagine to be entirely Singaporean from the Toa Payoh Lorong 5 market. There was carrot cake, hokkien mee, satay, laksa, ban mian, claypot rice, oyster omelette to be shared while playing dance on the Wii/ Kinect?

And of course, lo hei. With freshly shredded vegetables from Auntie Alice and well wishes for Singapore and Thailand, this was a crazy mixing, not tossing of the salad. Sharing traditions, building relations, bridging nations in small ways. :)

This was awesome fun!

And just reminds me again, how fortunate I am to have a gem of a friend in her! :)

Thank you.

For everything.

<3

Restoran Swee Ang, Jalan Kuning, Johor Bahru

Restoran Swee Ang at Jalan Kuning, Johor Bahru. Head along Jalan Tebrau parallel to Plaza Pelangi. Drive straight till you see Hong Leong Bank/Buddy Restoran, Jalan Kuning. Head a little further till you see an orange/black building. Make a left turn into the parking lots and you should see the restaurant on your left. :) They rest on Tuesdays, opening only at 11 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on weekends.

After a failed trip on a previous Tuesday, my aunt made plans to bring us to this place on a Wednesday instead. We arrived at 9.15 only to find that the shutters were still down. Heading over to Larkin Market, we looked for their previous neighbouring stallholders to ask for their contact numbers. That's where Swee Ang started. A humble shop in a badly ventilated bus interchange/ wet market food centre. The first time we've patronized this stall must have been a good ten years ago. Then the market underwent a revamp and they were elusive for the entire period. Only when we returned and spoke to their friends who still ran their drinks stall and porridge stalls in the market were we able to make contact and recce our way to their very own shop at Jalan Kuning. For my aunt and grandparents, this wasn't their first visit at the new shop. For my mother and I, we were looking forward to this. Their signature crab meat/ minced pork patty soup. :) So when they answered the phones at 1230 pm, we headed over immediately for our lunch.

Not one to stinge on ingredients, crab meat tops the minced meat patty in a soup i've long since come to recognize as one with a certain umami taste.

A fluffy shrimp omelette with crispy edges. Simple dish well done. :)

Pig trotters. Doesn't look it? Where's the skin and fats? Healthier choice version. You can ask for lean meats and no, you will not be disappointed. Tender pork braised in an aromatic gravy that does not have a salt content to keep you from drinking this on its own. Warning: May lead to one's consumption of copious amounts of rice.

 滑蛋河/ wat dan hor or simply egg drop hor fun. First time trying this in JB. For a RM$5 portion, you get substantial amounts of thin flat hor fun noodles fried in dark sauce before being drowned in tasty seafood gravy. If oil and carbo loading makes you faint hearted, you probably would want to skip this dish. Lacking wok hei, what it makes up for in quantity, it doesn't make up for quality. Everything else but the wat dan hor on my repeat visit.

This isn't in my neighbourhood but having patronized this stall since ten years ago, following them in their shift in locations. It's not just a die hard fan relationship with this stall. It's a genuine passion for good food that keeps us coming back. Familiar faces and delicious soups.

Try it yourself.