Dao Suan For a Cold Morning

The wind was howling outside the windows. Dark clouds rolled over the sky almost as far as the eyes could see... Another day when Orchard Road is going to flood?

Well, I'm cosy at home and the weather is keeping me home...
And what could be better than a bowl of hot dao suan for a cold & windy morning?
Hmm... can't think of anything..

Recipe for Dao Suan

Bird Nest Soup

Bird Nest Soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, some called it the 'caviar of the east'.  It is actually the saliva of the swiftlets that are used to make their nests. I remember when I was young, my mother  would be spending hundreds on buying birds nest to cook bird nest soup for the family. It was really a rare treat then. Now, we have them almost every week :P

About 5 years ago, my father got into a swiftlet farming craze. With a kilogramme of the nests costing up to $2000, it's easy to see why swiftlet farming has become very popular. My father decided to buy a plot of land in Malaysia and build a swiftlet farm. The swiftlets came and the bird nests started coming in gradually. He managed to convince Jerome that this is a viable business that can be invested in and it requires minimal monitoring. Basically you just build a multi-storey building, play the calls of the swiftlets using a good sound system, and 'invite' the swiftlets to build nests in your farm. After the baby chicks hatch, grow and leave the nest, you can then collect the nests.

Hence, we decided to buy a 3-storey shophouse and converted 2 levels into a swiftlet farm. Glad to say that we have had our first harvest of about 30 nests in the beginning of the year. It will be a few more years before we can start selling the nests. Now, it's just enough for our own personal consumption. But before we can really enjoy the fruits of our labour, there's a lot of work to be done...

Look at all these feathers, you can't eat them, can you? You can't pull out the feathers now as they're stuck to the harden nests.

So first, we need to soak them in water until the nests are soft.

After about 2 hrs, the nests are soft...

Pour everything into a sieve and wash it under the running tap to get rid of the small bits of egg shells and feathers. This will help to clear up the 'mess' faster...

Using a pair of long tweezers, you can then start removing the fathers bit by bit, feather by feather. 

You will need a few bowls of water to do this. 

After 2 hours, no more feathers!

(Removing the feathers is a time-consuming and almost 'back breaking' process, so you can see that's why the bird nests have been in storage for over 6 months now :P)

Can't see the bird's nest as well?

Here, drain out the water... 

Looks like jelly...

Bird's nest on its own is quite tasteless, you'll need other ingredients...

red dates, pao sheng (American Ginseng slices), rock sugar...

Pour everything + water into a double boiler...

30 minutes later, enjoy your birds' nest soup...

you deserve it... or rather I deserve it :P

I have some leftover... Put in the fridge...

And tomorrow cold bird nest soup!

Benefits of Birds' Nest: High in protein & amino acids, aids in digestion, good for complexion, promotes growth & tissue repairs. 

Tang Yuan & Sweet Potato Soup

After the Chang Cheng Porridge at 4pm, we knew we were going to be hungry soon. I have only 1 sweet potatoe left in the fridge & that is definitely not enough for the 2 of us. So I decided to make some tang yuan (glutinous rice balls) to add to the sweet potato soup. This is the first time I'm making this combination and we love it :)


Glutinous Rice balls (Tang Yuan) with Sweet Potato Soup

1) Put sweet potaoes (peeled & cut into big pieces) & a few slices of ginger into a pot of water & bring to boil. Add a few pieces of pandan leaves. Cook till the sweet potatoes are soft (skewer will pierce through easily). Add sugar to taste (I've used rock honey, hence the soup looks yellowish). Remove from heat.
2) While the sweet potato soup is cooking, prepare the glutinous rice balls.
Dissolve about 1tbsp of sugar in 200ml of water. Pour & mix the water (slowly, part by part) with 100g of glutinous rice flour. Add just enough water & mix to form a dough. Add colourings if desired.
3) Boil another small pot of water to cook the glutinous rice balls. Pinch the dough with your thumb & index finger & roll into it a small ball and drop it directly into the boiling water. (Keep the balls as small as possible. They taste better.) When they're cooked (they will float to the surface), dish them out & add to the cooked sweet potatoe soup.

Beancurd Skin with Gingko Nuts Tong Sui

A sweet Chinese dessert, good warm or cold.


Beancurd Skin with Gingko Nuts Tong Sui

Recipe for Beancurd Skin with Gingko Nuts Tong Sui

Ingredients:
1 packet/100g of beancurd skin (especially for dessert)
1/2 cup white pearl barley
1 packet of gingko nuts (bought a packet from NTUC, 80g without shells & skin)
(*halved, remove core & blanch in hot water)
1 egg, beaten
rock sugar/ sugar
2 litres of water
a stalk of pandan leaves, tied in a bundle



Method:
1) Wash barley & put in pot with water. Bring to boil, lower heat & slightly open the pot cover. Simmer for 15 minutes.
2) Add prepared gingko nuts.
3) Break beancurd skin in package into smaller pieces. Soak for 5 mins or till soft. Drain water & add the beancurd skin to the pot.
4) Add pandan leaves. Simmer for 20-30 mins.
5) Add beaten egg slowly into the pot, stirring the soup at the same time.
6) Add sugar to taste.
7) Serve hot or cold.

Sweet Potato Soup

Sweet Potatoe Soup

My mum gave me a big bag of sweet potatoe (brown skin, orange flesh, Indonesia type) a few weeks back as one of my uncles have given us an entire box. And this is the 3rd time I've prepared sweet potato soup over the past month :P, trying to use up all the sweet potatoes. We usually eat them as a dessert warm. But realise that they taste even better when it's cold. We couldn't finish the entire pot the last time, so kept some in the fridge :P

I've bought some Japanese sweet potatoes (red-purple skin, yellow flesh) to mix. They're sweeter and the flesh firmer (like cooked potatoes). The Indonesian/Malaysian orange flesh texture is more like cooked carrot in a soup.

A very simple sweet chinese dessert to prepare. I've decided to include the ingredients for the benefit of those who don't really cook and can see that this is really easy and anyone can do this :)

There are many kinds of sweet potatoes in the market. It's good to mix & match to get a colourful & flavourful bowl of sweet potato soup. Choose small to medium size ones. Avoid choosing the big ones as they tend to have more fibre and you'll get 'tough threads' in your sweet potatoes when they're cooked.

Recipe for Sweet Potato Soup
(serves 4 medium bowls or 8 small bowls)

Ingredients:
3 Japanese sweet potatoes (taste sweeter)
2 medium brown skin sweet potatoes
about 2 litres of water
a few slices of old ginger
a bundle of pandan leaves
2 rock honey/rock sugar

Method:
1) Peel the skin of the sweet potatoes and cut into pieces. Soak in a bowl of water.
This removes extra starch and helps to give a clear soup.
2) Drain and remove the water.
3) Put the sweet potatoes & ginger in a new pot of water (2litres). Bring to boil.
Turn to small flame and simmer for 15 mintues or till cooked. Use a skewker to poke through a piece of sweet potatoe. It should poke through easily. If there are different types of potatoes, do the skewer test for each variety.
4) Put in the pandan leaves and 2 pieces of rock honey/ sugar to desired sweetness. Turn off fire. Cover lid and let the pandan flavour to infuse the soup for 10 minutes.
5) Serve warm or cold.

Alternatively, you may want to add the orange sweet potatoes later as they cook faster. Cook the Japanese ones for 5 minutes before adding in the orange ones.

Dao Suan

Yesterday, went to the hawker centre for breakfast. Had soyabean milk with 'you char kweh'. Remembered that I had a packet of split green beans at home waiting to be cooked, so bought an extra 'you char kweh' to cook 'dao suan' this morning.


Dao Suan with You Char Kweh


Recipe for Dao Suan
(serves about 4 medium bowls or 8 small bowls)

Ingredients:
1 packet of split beans (these are actually green beans without skin), soaked overnight
1 litre of water
a piece of rock honey
sugar
pandan leaves (2 leaves for steaming dao suan, the rest to be tied in a bundle)
1 pair of you char kueh
sweet potato starch water (app. 200ml of water mixed with 8 tbps of sweet potato starch)

Method:
Cooking the beans:
1) Drain the split beans that's soaked overnight. Mix the beans with 1 tbsp of sugar. Cut 2 pandan leaves in halves and place them on a plate. Pour the beans over the pandan leaves.
Steam the beans for 20-30 mins or till cooked. Try some to make sure that they're soft enough.
Preparing the sauce:
2) In a pot, boil 1 litre of water. Switch off fire & put in the bundle of pandan leaves. Leave for 10 minutes to infuse the pandan flavour.
3) Remove the bundle of pandan leaves & add in a piece of rock honey. Add in more sugar if necessary. Make it slightly sweeter as more liquid will be added later.
4) Turn on small heat & slowly pour in the sweet potato starch water into the pot, stirring the 'soup' at the same time. This will ensure that the soup is smooth & not lumpy. Add more starch water as necessary to achieve the required thickness in the soup.
5) Once the soup is ready, turn off heat. Add in the steamed beans and mix well.
6) Serve hot with slices of you char kweh.