Macaroni Chicken Soup

 

If you were to google in the web on macaroni chicken soup, you probably would find ton of interesting recipes from Western to Asian styles. The images are captivating and each one looked so delicious and has its uniqueness just for this simple dish. I took a closer look at most of the images and visited some of the sites that I thought the recipes would be closed to what I was searching for. Unfortunately, I could not find one that pleased me. What am I looking for??

I think I need to share with you a little more on how this dish was served in my family when I was young that I didn't like back then and how I fell in love with it now. This dish was only prepared whenever someone fell ill in my family. So you could probably imagine how plain this dish was going to be prepared; served with simple non-oily stock like anchovies broth, pak choi and perhaps ham or sliced pork. I remembered I would never enjoy eating it no matter how tasty it was but I am still thankful for my mum's effort very much!

When I looked through the macaroni soup recipes that I could find in the websites especially those cooked in Asian styles, many called for chicken broth as the soup base and a variety of vegetables like pak choi, carrots and/or peas and some use ham, fish balls and/or sausages, shredded chicken for the meats. Some even added Chinese Angelica Root (Dang Gui). Frankly it doesn't taste bad but not an excellent one still I would say. Somehow or rather all the recipes that I stumbled on didn't hit me at all. This wasn't only because of how this dish brought back 'unpleasant' childhood memories but mainly because I tasted an absolutely delicious bowl of simple clear chicken broth macaroni in the Church I attended every Sunday later on in Singapore.

This Macaroni Chicken Soup was flavourful with tasty clear chicken broth, fragrant with a little hint of ginger, Chinese parsley, and fried onions. Simply served it with some chopped red chillies, light soy sauce and toasted bread crumbs. Omit all the 'intimidating' ingredients like vegetables or meats for health reasons or whatsoever just for this time as to preserve the original flavour of the chicken essence and I bet that you will not regret of doing so :).

You could probably cook chicken rice for lunch and use the broth to prepare a light dinner meal just for this dish like what I did. I will share with you the recipe for chicken rice in my upcoming post...

Ingredients:
1 bird of chicken (About 800g)
Salt to wash chicken
3-5 thick slices of old ginger
Water just enough to cover the chicken

1 packet of macaroni
Water to boil the macaroni
Salt

Chinese parsley (Coarsely chopped)
Red chillies (Seed removed and julienned)
Store-bought fried onions
Bread crumb (Cut white bread into small cubes and toast in the toaster or oven until crunchy)
Chicken bouillon granules
Salt to taste
Dash of pepper and light soy sauce when serve
 
Method

1. Boil water, throw in some salt and cook the macaroni until al-dente and set aside.

2. Rub the cavity and the outer part of the chicken with salt. Rinse and wash.

3. Prepare a pot of cold water. Put the cleaned chicken in the cold water and switch on the fire at very low temperature. Make sure that the water is hot but not boiling throughout. Let the chicken sit in the hot water for about an hour to an hour and a half and cook it using indirect heat.

4. Remove chicken and rinse with cold water and set aside.

5. Chop the chicken neck off debone the breast. Pound the bones in a pestle to optimise the chicken flavour while keeping the thighs for your chicken rice. If you are not cooking chicken rice together with this dish, you may debone the whole chicken and pound all the chicken bones and throw the crushed bones back to the pot of soup. Shred the chicken meat to your liking and set aside.

6. Chop off the roots of the Chinese parsley and throw them into the pot while keeping the leaves for garnishing. Brew the soup for another half an hour or so.

7. Add salt and chicken bouillon granules to taste.

8. Remove fat from the soup.

9. Put some cooked macaroni in a bowl. Using a sieve, scoop some soup into the bowl to warm up the macaroni then drain away the soup back to the main pot.

10. Using a sieve again scoop some soup to the bowl of macaroni. Serve with shredded chicken, fried onions, chopped parsley, julienned red chillies and bread crumbs (optional) with dash of pepper and light soy sauce.

 

(Despicable Me 2 was in the theatre last month and it was my kids' favourite show. I thought this picture was too cute not to be posted and shared...

I thought Minions only love bananas?! heee) 

 

Note :

1. Just to share with you a silly experience I had when I was toasting small cubes bread. Stay near to your toaster and watch it closely as it got toasted and BURNT too fast without you knowing. My kitchen almost caught fire few years back because of this.


 

'Bubur Taukwa' or Dried Bean Curd Porridge

I always find this porridge rather a little too plain and lacked of 'ummpph' but I am a fan of porridge so no matter how you cook it I am able to finish up more than a big bowl of porridge most of the times. Today I finished two big bowls and was so satisfied as I have discovered a new way of enjoying this food.

Previously I would add more light soy sauce to this dish as I really felt that it somehow lacked of something but I just didn't know how to describe it!! Even after adding msg and salt, I still didn't quite satisfied with the taste and felt that something was missing. Initially I thought perhaps it was due to the stock as it used just plain prawn stock as base without chicken or pork meat/bones.

Today I am so happy to have discovered a better way to enjoy this food and I have fall in love with it now!! This is a 'Peranakan' porridge and according to my mother-in-law it has to go along with lots of green onions, cilantro and chopped chillies with soy sauce. It happened that my kitchen has run out of soy sauce so we substituted it with dark soy sauce. That wasn't good enough .... I myself by chance added some bovril to the porridge and that made tremendous difference to this simple and humble food!

Bubur Taukwa (Recipe for 4 pax)

Ingredients

1.5 cup of rice
2 big pieces of taukwa (cut into cubes and briefly pan fried)
8 pieces of prawn (deshelled; keep the skin for stock, deveined and cut into small cubes)
1 cup of slice white fish
100g of minced meat (marinate with soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil; roll into small balls)
Aboutt 1.5 ltr of water for rice
About 3 cups of water for boiling the prawn shell

Method

1. Briefly fry the skin of the prawn without oil in a pan and pound lightly to maximise the prawn essense. Boil it in the water for about 15 - 20 minutes. Drain and remove the shell.

2. Boil the rice in the water and prawn stock for about 20 minutes and switch of the gas. Close the lid and leave the rice aside for an hour. Reboil again for another half an hour or so.

3. Add prawn and minced meat and boil for another 10 minutes. Then add taukwa and fish and continue to boil for about 5 minutes or less.

4. Add seasoning.

5. Serve with green onions, cilantro, chopped chillies with a little soy sauce, black sauce, pepper and BOVRIL.

Notes:

1. The most important ingredients for this porridge is prawn and taukwa. Meat ball and slice fish are optional.

2. The tip to shorten the boiling time in cooking porridge is to freeze the rice first beforehand. This step will eventually take you less than half an hour to cook a pot of porridge! I have tired this method before and I was so amazed by the result!

Lauk Jawa

Yes.. this weekend we are fairly crazy with Peranakan cuisine. After all my husband and my in laws are Peranakan and we can't run away with chillies and spices in our cooking.

This is another simple dish cooked by my mother-in-law. In fact we cooked Lauk Jawa a day before the Assam Babi Masak Peria. Hence we have balance of spices and ingredients that could be rolled over for the latter. The spices used are quite similar for both dishes except that we didnt use lemongrass, tamarind juice and fermented soya beans for Lauk Jawa. These 3 ingredients to me were quite extinct in the sense that its simple combination is able to bring a dish to a total extreme of fragrant sourish and salty flavours that savour in your mouth. These flavours are total opposite of how Lauk Jawa can satisfy you. The later is creamily spicy.

Give it a try if you are keen!



(Some of the ingredients... forgot to take out the milk!! The chillies on the left have been combined with grinned shallots and candle nuts while the one on the left is sambal belacan.)

Ingredients

Long beans cut diagonally
3 Big onions (cut coarsely)
3 fresh red chillies (sliced)
3 fresh green chillies (sliced)
90ml coconut milk/ fresh milk

Spices
5 dried red chillies
2 fresh red chillies
a thumb size shrimp paste (belacan)
2 candle nuts

Method

1. Blend the spices and fry them in low heat until oil seeps out.

2. Add the vegetables and continue to fry.

3. Add milk and a little water if too thick and continue to simmer until the vegetables turn soft. If you prefer crunchy vegetables reduce the cooking time.

4. Add salt and sugar to taste.

Assam Babi Masak Peria (Pork Ribs Cooked with Bitter Gourd in Tamarind Sauce)

We had this simple dish for dinner. This is one of my favourite Peranakan foods. I had this home-cooked dish five years ago. It was so yummy that I may forget the presentation of the dish but not the smell and taste at all! It was then cooked by my late beloved grandmother-in-law. I never planned to cook this tonight but I just kept thinking about it when my mother-in-law casually mentioned this dish yesterday. So I dug out all the Peranakan recipes books and magazine that I have and was so happy to have found the recipe!

This dish is fairly easy to cook and it did not call for complicated spices. You probably would have all the ingredients at hand most of the times. You may replace the pork ribs with pork belly or chicken if you wish. My husband and I are bitter gourd fans and we love the texture and taste of this not so likable green by many no matter how you cook it :>

Ingredients
1/2 kg pork ribs
1 bitter gourd (About one and half feet long)
One bowl of long beans
4 fresh green chillies (throw away the stalk and deseed)
2 fresh red chillies (throw away the stalk and deseed)
950ml of tamarind juice (use about 5 tablespoons of tamarind paste and squeeze the juice out)
2 stalks of lemongrass (Smash the head)

Spices
10 dried chillies
4 fresh red chillies
half inch thick and about 2" x 2" width square shrimp paste (belacan)
10 shallots
4 candle nuts (grinned until fairly fine)
2 tbsp mashed fermented soya beans (taucu)

Method

1. Boil the pork ribs in boiling water for about 10 minutes, drain and put aside.

2. Cut the bitter gourd into rectangle about 3cm x 2cm each and boil them for about 10 minutes and set aside.

3. Cut the long bean about 3cm long each and set aside.

4. Blend all the ingredients for spices except the fermented soya beans.

5. Heat up the oil and fry the blended spices in slow fire until oil seeps out, about 20 minutes.

6. Add the fermented soya beans and lemongrass and continue to fry until fragrant, less than 5 minutes.

7. Add pork ribs and fry for about 10 minutes

8. Add tamarind juice and increase the fire and let the gravy boil in high heat for about 15 minutes. Transfer into a small pot at this stage. Reduce to low heat and simmer for about half an hour or more depending on how tender you prefer the pork ribs to be.

9. Add the long beans and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes

10. Add the bitter gourds, the balance of red and green chillies and continue to simmer until tender, about another 20 minutes

11. Add sugar and salt to taste.

I think everyone in the family had fairly more than a bowl of rice tonight. We had a good time enjoying this simple authentic Peranakan dish while watching the Singapore 45th National Day Parade on the TV!! I personally would give this dish 4 thumbs-up upon 5!

Notes :
1. I have blended the shallots separately with the chillies. I prefer to blend a lot of onions ahead of time and keep them in the fridge in an air tight container. This way, you may keep the blended shallots for later consumption for more than a week. I will just withdraw the required amount from the fridge whenever I need it.

2. You can do likewise for the chillies. In fact when you blend the dried chillies and red chillies, together with belacan, you are actually halfway making sambal belacan. To complete the recipe for making sambal belacan, just get a few lime leaves, shred them very finely, mix them together with the chillies paste and add a touch of lime juice. I had made this in advance also (without adding in the lime leaves and skin).

3. My late grandmother-in-law used to pound the lime leave and its skin until fairly fine and mix them together with the chillies. Do not use too much lime skin or it may cause the sambal belacan to taste bitter.

4. Cut down the spiciness of the chillies by adding some sugar. The tamarind juice will bring down the spiciness of the chillies as well. If you prefer a more spicy sambal belacan or assam babi, add chillies padi (small chillies.

5. We enjoy very tender bitter gourd and long bean for this dish rather than crunchy. So for that result, I have simmered the vegetables for quite a while.

6. My mother-in-law said that brinjal can be added in if wish, so I would think that lady fingers are suitable as well?!

My Humble Background..

---

I started cooking at the age of 15 for a huge family. I learnt cooking mainly Cantonese food from my sister and my mother. I never baked until the age of 34 now and after married with a daughter who aged 21 months! My daugther is my source of strength and perseverance. A hard day of working, cooking and doing housework will by itself payoff by her hugs, smiles and of course her sweet calling of 'mee mee ah....' :)

I always love cooking and experimenting new recipes and especially the last two years when I have my own family which means I have my own kitchen space and stuff etc.:) I have indulged in cooking ‘Peranakan’ foods through my late grandmother in-law as I am crazy for anyting that is spicy and hot! I find spices are heavenly created natural aromatic ingredients that can enrich and improve one's health and yet may create harm at the same time. I am planning to build a small little herbs garden at my house corridor when I am more settle with my self-thought baking lessons.

I am exploring about food catering business and nutritional foods for kids. There is a strong inner calling to further look into the F & B industry since last few months. My close friend who is a CEO of a private school kept on assuring me that I can do more than working for others BUT i need to find what it is that is really for me. Preparing foods for 30 guests are not a problem for me but to do this as a business is not something can be taken likely. Mind you I have been working in healthcare for almost my entire life and have zero formal training in culinary. Anyway there are a lot of successful professionals who switch career mid way like Lynette Foo, Lynn Chen, Su-Mene to quote a few.

Obviously I do not know where to set my food until recently when I had a car accident a month ago. It changes the total perspectives of my views of life. Yes it scares me but it matures me more than anything else about vocational life! During the recovery period I was homebound. Given the abundant of time and the inner calling to explore F & B I read up a lot about cooking and baking. I began baking during this period learning from blogs, recipes etc... and the result is I am falling in love with baking! I just can't stop baking. I bake and bake and bake.... :)

Learning baking will and has indeed opened another chapter of my informal 'culinary' journey. The excitement and satisfaction started as early as at the stage of planning the recipes to suit the purpose for the gatherings, festives or just for the simple reason to finish up whatever balance ingredients I have in the fridge or cupboard! I always cook & now bake with my HEART and SOUL for my family and friends. I believe that the same passion will be the ingrained motivator for me to do likewise in my food business! I do not aim to be a cook or a baker. What I want to be is a social entrepreneur in this field. What I have now is definitely providence from God. He teaches me to cook the FISH and now bake the BREAD. HE performed the miracle 2000 years ago in feeding seven thousands people and it is my prayer that the same miracle will happen through my future business in 'feeding' or 'teaching the underprivileged how to FISH! God Bless!