Quay Po Cooks: fish soup

Showing posts with label fish soup. Show all posts

Monday, March 21, 2011

A blog post for a good friend, Kimberly of Kimba's Kitchen

Kimberly of Kimba’s Kitchen is no stranger to many of you. She has a lovely blog with lots of delicious recipes and "eye candy" photos. Whenever I want to treat my eyes to a feast, her blog is one that I will go to.

Kimberly is the first blogger friend to invite me to do a guest post for her. I feel so honored. Thanks Kim for the invite, the friendship and your continuous support. You and all my blogger friends and the silent readers who come visit me often and leave kind words are the reason why Quay Po Cooks is still alive and kicking! HUGS!!

This is the recipe I submitted for the guest post and if you are interested to try this hearty tasty soup rice, please click on the photo and it will bring you to Kim’s blog and the recipe is there.

Fish bone soup rice

Ingredients:

1 whole fish bone from a medium size "Senangin" fish

½ cup milk

Enough water to cover the fish bones and 1 in over

Bullion fish stock to taste (1 – 2 cubes)

2 tsp Chinese cooking wine

1/4 cup dried scallops (washed, soaked in warm water for 15 mins)

2 pcs dried shitake mushroom (washed, soaked in warm water for 15 mins)

½ cup chopped cilantro

½ cup chopped spring onions

1 inch spring ginger, thinly sliced

1 tsp white pepper corn (pound slightly)

2 cups of cooked soft white rice

1 tbs cooking oil

Salt to taste

Method:

Wash and soak dried scallops and warm water in 2 separate bowls in warm water for 15 mins. Squeeze dry the mushrooms, slice them thinly and set aside. In a deep soup pot (pot A), add oil and sauté ginger until fragrant. Add sliced mushroom and stirfry for 1 min. Set aside.

Fry the fish bones in a wok till golden brown, drain oil and set aside.

In another soup pot (pot B), add fried fish bones, water, fish stock, white pepper corns and bring to boil. Lower heat to low and let simmer for 1 hour. Sieve the soup into pot A. Add cooked white rice and scallop together with its water and bring to boil. Lower heat and let simmer for 20 mins or till scallop is soft. Add milk and Chinese cooking wine and simmer for another 5 mins. Lastly, add salt to taste. Mix well. Garnish with cilantro and spring onions and serve hot.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.