Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup

Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup

Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup

I love soups. I particularly do love sour soups as an appetizer because they really bring out my appetite! I know sour soups aren’t for all taste buds, but here’s a simple one you can make at home with fresh ingredients. You can always adjust the sourness (and even the spicyness) as desired. I came across this type of soup one day at a Vietnamese restaurant and loved it! So I googled it and then kind of tweaked it to my own tastes. To be honest, I don’t always follow soup recipes that I find. I love the fact that I can create, twist, tweak, add, remove, and flavour it with my personality – so this is my interpretation of it!
Soup Name:

Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup (Canh Chua Ca)

 

For soup and recipe videos, visit us on YouTube.

To start, you’ll need fresh fish heads. To be honest, you can use any type of bigger fish, such as salmon, tuna, big head fish, or bass. I just go to my local wet mart and pick up some “big head” fish, which is at like $15 HKD a head, which is cheap! If you’d like more protein, you can buy the fish tail as well. Don’t forget to use a fish bag in the soup. This will help keep the fish bones together as it disintegrates in the soup.
You’ll also need some fresh ingredients such as fresh parsley, okra, bean sprouts, garlic, ginger, shallots, green onions, lemongrass, tomatoes, celery, and fish sauce. In some recipes you’ll also find Vietnamese taro stems (which aren’t easy to find, so you can replace this with celery).
To make your fish heads super fragrant for the soup, use your soup pot (empty) and add in a dollop of oil (any type) and pan fry on medium head the diced garlic, ginger slices, sliced green onions, tamarind, sliced lemongrass, and diced shallots and fry until fragrant. Add in your clean fish parts and fry until the skin is a golden brown. When sufficiently yummy, you can throw everything into a thin mesh soup bag and set aside (optional).
Because I do sometimes get lazy and know that the kids aren’t likely going to fight me to drink this soup, I didn’t use a fish bag and just added water at this time until the pot is 3/4 full.

After you bring the soup to a boil, turn to medium heat and add in the tomatoes, celery (or taro stems), okra, and pineapples and continue to boil. Boil on medium for another 15 minutes or until the fish is completely cooked and the vegetables have softened. You can almost consider this a quick boil soup.

Taste the soup and add fish sauce as desired to increase the saltiness. This is when you can add the bean sprouts because they pretty much flash cook. Then serve immediately with parsley (and little spicy peppers, too) and enjoy! Be sure to scoop out all the goodies inside. Serve with rice or noodles! I love the colours of this soup – but more importantly, the flavours!! I do add more tamarind because I love sour stuff! Did I say that already? Haha… the best, are Costco giant sour keys….
What’s involved?
Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 30 mins on medium heat

Total time: 1 hour

Serves: 6 bowls

Ingredients
  • 2 large fish heads, halved (or use fish tails)
  • 2-3 stalks of celery (or Vietnamese taro stem), chopped
  • 2 tomatoes, quartered
  • 1 cup of pineapple chunks (canned is OK)
  • 1 cup of bean sprouts
  • 1 cup of okra, chopped
  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 5 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 3 slices of fresh ginger
  • 2-3 stalks of fresh green onions, diced
  • 2-3 stalks of fresh lemon grass, chopped
  • fresh parsley
  • 2 tbsp of tamarind
  • fish sauce, to taste
  • 3L of water
Cooking Instructions
  1. In your soup pot, add a tablespoon of oil and fry the shallots, garlic, ginger, fresh green onions, and fresh lemon grass.
  2. When fragrant, throw in clean fish parts and pan fry until the skin is golden and crispy.
  3. Fill the pot to 3/4 full (or about 3L worth of water)
  4. Bring to a boil and turn to medium head, scooping out any oil or foam on top.
  5. Throw in tomatoes, pineapples, celery (or taro stems), and okra and let simmer for 15 minutes until the fish is completely cooked or the vegetables are soft.
  6. Taste soup and add fish sauce as needed.
  7. Add bean sprouts to boil for 1-2 minutes and serve. Garnish with fresh parsley.

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Bitter Melon Soup with Corn and Pork Meatballs

Bitter Melon Soup with Corn and Pork Meatballs

Bitter Melon Soup with Corn and Pork Meatballs

Soup Name:

Bitter Melon with Corn and Pork Meatballs Soup

Traditional Chinese Name:

簡單菜湯 (Jiǎn dān cài tāng)

 

I made this after work one day and managed to pick up fresh veggies and meat from the wet mart on the way home. Sometimes I plan for soup, sometimes I don’t, and this soup is one of those last minute made-up combinations because I felt like having meatballs and bitter melon at the same time!

The pork meatballs are a substitute for the pork bones and I could eat them along with my soup. I also made extra and froze for a rainy day so I could pan fry – no wasted efforts! The bitter melon is also cooling, helps relieve heat in my body, and helps relieve that painful tongue after eating too much fried food.

What’s involved?

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 6 bowls

Ingredients

    • 2 fresh bitter melons, halved (with skin), de-seeded, and sliced
    • 2 fresh corn, quartered
    • 20 fresh ginkgo biloba
    • 1 pound of fresh ground pork
    • half fresh onion, diced
    • 1 egg
    • your own spices
    • 1 tsp of chicken broth powder
    • 2 L of water

Cooking Instructions

  1. Boil your soup water
  2. Wash and cut the corn and throw into the soup water
  3. Wash and cut up the bitter melon (de-seed and keep on the skin) and add with the ginkgo biloba to your soup
  4. in a separate bowl, mix in the diced onions, spices and 1 egg until the pork fat becomes stringy and quite sticky
  5. Roll into bite-sized meatballs
  6. When the soup water boils, drop in the meatballs one at a time, ensuring that the water is still boiling (this ensures the meatballs cook immediately when they hit the water and stays together)
  7. Boil on high for 25 minutes
  8. Serve and enjoy!

Start with the meatballs base.  I mix in ground pork, diced onions, and 1 egg and seasoned with black pepper, salt, and a bit of soy sauce.  You can also add paprika, fresh ginger, green onions, even bread crumbs.  Then you roll them into little round balls to be dropped into your soup!

Boil your soup water in a pot on medium heat and add in the corn.  As this boils, you can prepare the bitter melon.  I halve them and scrape out the seeds with a spoon and then cut them quite thinly.  The key to quick boil soups is that the ingredients cook fast!

When the water boils, throw in the sliced bitter melon and gingko and 1 tsp of chicken broth powder.  When it boils again, drop in your meatballs and leave it to boil for 25 minutes on medium heat.

Garnish with green onions, parsley, or cilantro as you wish.  This totally eats like a meal!  Serve with rice or noodles.

 

Quick Boil Pumpkin and Corn Vegetarian Soup

Quick Boil Pumpkin and Corn Vegetarian Soup

Quick Boil Pumpkin and Corn Vegetarian Soup

Soup Name:

Quick Boil Pumpkin and Corn Vegetarian Soup

Traditional Chinese Name:

簡單菜湯 (Jiǎn dān cài tāng)

What started as a simple vegetable soup, turned into an interesting mix of hot and cold vegetables because I could! The children had the soup warm, served with macaroni for dinner and it’s an easy quick boil, meatless soup. You can add real meat if you’d like, ideally chicken breast or thighs for a quick boil or even Chinese preserved ham. A great, quick soup for those times when you’re just running out of time, but have a fridge full of vegetables! The base is quite easy and you can add any other vegetables that suit your taste!

For the quick boil, you’ll need to have small pieces of vegetables to enable them to cook faster and release flavours faster. I always keep the cobs for the soup base, there is SO MUCH flavour in those things! Throw everything into a pot of boiling water as a start.

Throw in the shucked loose corn and broth and boil on high heat for 30 minutes. You can throw in the snow peas to blanch for 2 minutes and then serve.  What I also did here was have extra “greek salad” ingredients (raw cucumbers, raw tomatoes, and parsley) just for fun – but it tasted awesome!

What’s involved?

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 6 bowls

Ingredients

  • 1/2 fresh Japanese pumpkin, cubed (with skin off)

  • 2 fresh corn, shucked (keep the cob for the soup)

  • 20 fresh snow peas

  • 1 teaspoon of vegetable broth powder (or half a cup of vegetable soup stock)

  • 2 L of water

Cooking Instructions

  1. In a pot of boiling water, add cubed pumpkin, corn cobs, corn kernals and stock (or powder)
  2. Boil in high for 30 minutes
  3. Before serving, blanch the snow peas in the soup for 2 minutes
  4. Serve and enjoy!

The beauty of this is that you can add in your choice of cubed vegetables, such as carrots, radish, and even tomatoes that compliment the sweet flavours of the pumpkin.  

Alternatively, you can use miso paste instead of chicken powder, which is just as tasty as  quick boil!

 

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Vegetarian Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes and Corn Broth with Orzo

Vegetarian Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes and Corn Broth with Orzo

Soup Name:

Vegetarian Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes and Corn Broth with Orzo

For more videos, visit us on YouTube.

 

 

I know, the orzo doesn’t make it very Chinese, but my family loves small-sized pasta that I decided to turn this soup into a solid meal for the children. This is another quick boil vegetarian soup that can be done in under 30 minutes. For my kids, I added pan-fried sausages on top for some protein, but you can always consider adding tofu or even egg drops! This recipe was inspired by another mommy on instagram – you can follow @TheChineseSoupLady for my adventures of “souping”.

For this recipe, you’ll need: Sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, fresh corn and vegetable broth is optional, or for those who prefer meat, you can add the preserved Chinese Ham or chicken / beef broth.

To start, you can begin boiling your soup water, which I use around 3L of water. Like most quick boils, the ingredients need to be cut small so that they can cook quickly. I would normally recommend ingredients like onions, leafy greens, melons to be cut smaller, but because potatoes and sweet potatoes melt into soups or self disintegrate, I cut them bigger – roughly 1 cubic inch will suffice.

If your soup water has boiled, just dump in your chopped potatoes into the soup, but if it’s still work in progress, I’d recommend soaking the potatoes and sweet potatoes in warm water until you can use them or they will brown and then stay brown in the soup and just doesn’t look as appealing.

I also shuck the corn. This is another recommended technique for quick boil soups because the corn will cook faster. Don’t throw away the cob! You can use these as part of your soup base and heightens the sweet flavours. You can just simply snap the cobs into halves with your hands once they have been shucked. Makes me feel strong – grrrr!

At this point, you can throw it all into your soup if the water’s boiled. Add some vegetable, chicken, or beef broth to heighten flavours or throw in 2 slices of preserved Chinese Ham. At this point, you can start preparing the orzo – which is simply to throw as much as you can eat (without wastage) into a pot of slightly salted water for about 7-9 minutes. Once the orzo is done – you can try a few to make sure it’s soft enough to your liking, drain and rinse under running cold water. This will help ensure it’s stopped cooking and won’t stick to each other. I personally don’t mind soaking in cold water.

This next part is about adding some additional ingredients that the children don’t like, but I do! I’ll pan fry diced garlic and onions to use as a garnish for the soup. If I could, I’d probably throw in the onions into the soup base as well! Actually, come to think of it, I could eat the garlic and onion garnish just by itself… a little bit of salt and omigosh – so delicious!

Interestingly enough, this sets the beginning for a chowder soup, but because I’m keeping it Asian-styled, I don’t go chowder. Once the soup has boiled on medium heat for 30 minutes, you can salt if you’d like, but be sure to taste it first. If you’re using Chinese ham, I wouldn’t recommend more salt.

In a bowl, scoop as much or as little orzo as you can eat and then scoop your boiling, hot soup on top. Then garnish with the onions, garlic or a bit of parsley if have and ta-da – your meal. Again, for the children, I topped with pan-fried sausages, but you can really add anything you’d like that will put a smile on your face. Enjoy!

What’s involved?

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 30 hours

Total time: 1 hour

Serves: 8 bowls 

Ingredients

  • 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and largely cubed
  • 2 large potatoes, peeled and largely cubed
  • 1 fresh white onion, peeled and diced
  • 3 cloves of fresh garlic, diced
  • 2 fresh corn, shucked
  • orzo pasta
  • 3L water

Cooking Instructions

  1. Boil your soup water
  2. Wash, peel and largely cube your sweet potatoes and potatoes
  3. Shuck the corn, keeping the cob
  4. When the soup water boils, add all the ingredients together and boil on medium heat for 30 minutes
  5. Add optional broth or salt to the soup if you’d like
  6. For garnish, dice garlic and onions
  7. Pan-fry until golden brown in a little bit of oil
  8. Set aside to cool
  9. In a smaller pot with 1 tsp of salt, boil the orzo for 7-9 minutes until soft
  10. Once the orzo is finished, drain and rinse under cold running water to prevent sticking and further cooking
  11. When soup is done, in a bowl, put orzo on the bottom and add in hot soup
  12. Add garnishes
  13. Enjoy!

Here are some examples of other soups using a chicken soup base:

The chicken soup base is a great soup to start with for so many dishes and soups!  Here are a few to get you started!

This is a great and very simple chicken soup that I use as a base.  My kids love drinking this as plain chicken soup.

Using this chicken soup base for shabu shabu is the perfect solution to start your hot pot adventures!

This soup is using the base chicken soup recipe that is perfect for double-boiling.  For example, the only additional ingredient added here is the ginseng on top of the soup base.

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Snow Pear and Dragon’s Eye Sweet Dessert Soup

Snow Pear and Dragon’s Eye Sweet Dessert Soup

Snow Pear and Dragon’s Eye Sweet Dessert Soup

Soup Name:

Snow Pear and Dragon’s Eye Sweet Dessert Soup

One day, in the thick of a winter evening, when all the children lay sleeping, I suddenly had this urge for something sweet, crunchy and hot.  No panic.  Taking a peek in the fridge, I found one giant snow pear staring at me. Perfect. This is how simple this dessert soup is and a majority of the other ingredients are primarily pantry items with a billion years shelf-life.  I personally love food with layers of texture and flavour and after twenty minutes, I was in bliss.

What’s involved?

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 4 bowls

Ingredients

  • 1 giant fresh snow pear (preferably the type with dark brown / orange skin), chunked
  • 1 tablespoon of dried longans (or dried dragon eyes)
  • 1 tablespoon of dried wolfberries
  • 1 1-inch diameter chunk of golden rock sugar
  • 1.5 L of water

Cooking Instructions

  1. Boil you soup water
  2. Cut up the snow pear into edible bite-sizes
  3. When the water boils, throw all the ingredients together
  4. Boil on high heat for 15 minutes
  5. Serve and enjoy hot!

The ingredients for the soup are:  1 large snow pear (preferably the sweeter kind with a thick, orange-brown skin), some dried longans (or dragon eyes), dried wolfberries, and rock sugar (adjusted to exactly the way you want).  I tend to use less sweet versions, so adjust accordingly!

The great thing about these massive Korean snow pears is that they produce a lot of fruit flesh.  Look at the giant mound of fruit!

The ingredients for the soup are:  1 large snow pear (preferably the sweeter kind with a thick, orange-brown skin), some dried longans (or dragon eyes), dried wolfberries, and rock sugar (adjusted to exactly the way you want).  I tend to use less sweet versions, so adjust accordingly!

The great thing about these massive Korean snow pears is that they produce a lot of fruit flesh.  Look at the giant mound of fruit!

 Boil on high heat for 15 minutes (or to the desired crunchiness of your snow pears) and adjust the sweetness as well. I prefer it less sweet, but depends on your sweet tooth.

Serve piping hot and enjoy!

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Quick Boil Winter Melon, Mushrooms with Corn in Chicken Broth

Quick Boil Winter Melon, Mushrooms with Corn in Chicken Broth

Quick Boil Winter Melon, Mushrooms with Corn in Chicken Broth

Soup Name

Quick Boil Winter Melon, Mushrooms with Corn in Chicken Broth

Traditional Chinese Name:  

冬瓜冬菇 玉米 雞熬湯(dōng guā dōng gū yù mǐ jī ao tāng)

Nature of soup:  Slightly cooling (primarily from the winter melon)

This is the start of the “Quick Boil Series” of soups. It was requested by a friend who wanted to know how to make healthy, but quick soups for those busy-body people. In general, quick boil soups take around 10 minutes to prepare and about 25-30 minutes to boil and contain easy-to-find, supermarket type ingredients that are readily available so not a lot of planning is required. This is one of my favourite quick boil soups – the winter melon. To start, quick boil soups usually require smaller cuts of vegetables or meats (so that they soften quicker and you can extract the flavours more quickly). The winter melon is a classic example of boiling it for around 30 minutes and you’ll find the flesh has become translucent and soft and edible. It’s simply delicious, suitable for the whole family and super easy to make!

    Start with soaking the mushrooms and dried conpoys. You’ll need a good 5 minutes to get the mushroom stems nice and soft, so for those who don’t eat them or prefer not to eat them, you can cut them off and then quarter or slice the mushrooms thinly. I keep these mushrooms in the freezer and they have been there for 6 months plus and are still great!

      Start with soaking the mushrooms and dried conpoys. You’ll need a good 5 minutes to get the mushroom stems nice and soft, so for those who don’t eat them or prefer not to eat them, you can cut them off and then quarter or slice the mushrooms thinly. I keep these mushrooms in the freezer and they have been there for 6 months plus and are still great!

        During this time, you can begin to boil your soup water. For a family of four, I used about 3 L of water and had plenty to go around. You can then begin to peel and slice your winter melon. In normal old fire Chinese soups, I would keep the skin on, but for quick boils, I would recommend removing the skin. This way, the winter melon softens much quicker, but you can add the skin into the soup for flavour. The winter melons are normally sold like this (if they are the large ones). The vendors or supermarket will already pre-slice them for you, so simply shave the skin off lying it flat on one side.  After that, cube the winter melon so they are literally bite-sized. This makes them quicker to soften and cook and also, easier to eat!

          The next things to do are slice the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces as well. Keep them cubed and consistent with the size of the winter melons. No real reason other than the fact that it’s symmetrically similar and will also cook faster. You can also slice your mushrooms into cubes or into thin slices as pictured below. Similarly, bite-sized for ease of cooking.  Same for the corn. The smaller the cut of the corn, the quicker it will cook and consistently “small” with the rest of the soup ingredients. In this case, I quartered them.

            Once the water boils, throw all the ingredients together. People do ask me why I use boiling water in so many of my soup recipes, it’s because the immediate contact with heat cooks the meat or vegetables faster and prevents too much slow breakdown of the meat overtime and you’re able to save time by boiling it in parts.

              Boil on high heat until it really comes to a big boil again – which should be about 5 minutes. Once it’s boiling, reduce heat to a medium boil – but leave it covered (in order to maintain some pressure in the pot) for another 20 minutes. At this time, I will add either half a cup of chicken stock or 1 teaspoon of powdered chicken bouillon. This way, enough time has passed for the flavours of the ingredients to come out and you can taste how much you want to further season the soup. Don’t forget to taste it along the way! You’ll know it’s close to being done with the chicken breast has turned complete white and opaque and your winter melon is a nice translucent colour. Serve and enjoy! Don’t forget to scoop out the delicious ingredients to eat as part of your hearty soup.

                Ingredients

                • 2 medium-sized chicken breasts, bite-sized cubed
                • 1 x 2-inch thick slice of winter melon, skinned and bite-sized cubed
                • 2 fresh corn, quartered
                • 7-8 dried Chinese mushrooms, sliced thinly
                • 5 pieces of dried conpoy
                • 1 teaspoon of powdered chicken bouillon
                • 3 L of water

                Cooking Instructions

                1. Being by soaking Chinese mushrooms in warm water for 5 minutes
                  2. Start to boil your soup water
                  3. Cube chicken breast
                  4. Slice and cube winter melon – don’t throw away the skin (use it in the soup)
                  5. Quarter corn
                  6. Drain mushrooms and remove the stems with a knife of scissors and slice thinly
                  7. When your soup water boils, throw all your cut ingredients into the soup (add the bouillon last)
                  8. Boil on high for 5 minutes
                  9. Reduce boil to a medium-boil for another 20 minutes
                  10. Taste and add chicken bouillon (try 1 teaspoon first)
                  11. Boil for another 5 minutes
                  12. Serve and enjoy!

                For video on “7 Basic Chinese Soup Pantry Ingredients”, visit us on YouTube.

                Here are some examples of other soups using winter melon:

                Have you seen those whole winter melons that are carried out and the soup’s inside?  Well, here it is!  Make your very own double-boiled whole winter melon soup! 

                  I love a good fusion soup once in awhile and this winter melon parma ham mix is delicious!  It eats like a meal!  

                    Winter melon is also a great ingredient for teas!  This cooling tea is perfect for clearing the heaty body and relieving excess yang.

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