Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers
Lilypie First Birthday tickers
Lilypie Breastfeeding tickers

6/14/2010

Classic black bean soup


Guess what's inside? :)



Black bean soup! Yumz!



I'm a firm believer of the goodness of soups and hence after the trip I felt that it was important that we should get a dose of nourishing soup! Working with nothing much in the fridge, I decided to make a hearty soup with the black beans that fascinate Alicia so much during the Montessori activities (see Fun with Beans and Sorting Beans). I call this the classic black bean soup because you can actually add some chinese herbs to make it a herbal black bean soup. I've got one such recipe on my blog but the focus of the soup isn't really black beans though. :) It's just one of the ingredients. I will share with you another herbal version of black bean soup some other day...


Black beans contain:

"vitamin K, vitamin C, manganese, vitamin A, dietary fiber, potassium, folate, iron, magnesium, thiamin, riboflavin, copper, calcium, phosphorus, protein, omega-3 fatty acids and niacin. Black beans are also a very rich source of fiber, these nutrients play important role to prevent cholesterol from becoming oxidized and heart disease. When people talk about black bean, it is a unique type of bean because of the color coat on the black bean and it make them different from other beans, the color coat of black bean contain at least 8 different flavonoids that have enormous antioxidant potential that can be used to prevent degenerative diseases. Black bean like other types of beans contain a lot of protein contents and fiber, each cup has about 15 grams of both protein and fiber." (Source: Article Doctor)

For more info about black beans, click here.


Classic black bean soup

*Skip the dried cuttlefish for tots below 18mths*

Ingredients:
  • about 1 cup black beans
  • 200g pork ribs
  • 3 chicken breast bones
  • 1 dried cuttlefish
  • 1 handful red dates (pitted)
  • 1L water
  • salt to taste (optional)

Method:
  1. Blanch the pork ribs and chicken bones.
  2. Rinse the black beans, red dates and dried cuttlefish.
  3. Place all the ingredients into a slow cooker and slow-cook on LOW for 6-8hours.
  4. Sieve out the chicken bones, dried cuttlefish and red dates, leaving only the pork ribs and some black beans.
  5. Filter the oil using oil-filter paper.
  6. Add salt to taste if necessary (the soup's got a natural sweetness already).

If cooking the soup on the stove, you may want to boil the black beans for 2min then let it sit for an hour in the water prior to cooking. You would also have to add more water (about 2-3L) if boiling the soup on the stove as you would have to let it simmer for at least 2hours.


Alicia enjoyed drinking the soup and eating the black beans. She was actually eating her lunch but she insisted on having some soup and black beans from the slowcooker as part of her lunch that day... and she had it again for dinner. :)



Steamed herbal chicken

Just came back from a short trip to Bukit Tinggi not too long ago. I know some of my wonderful friends are waiting for me to update my blog with the photos taken during the trip but I'm still waiting for the photos from my mum's camera to consolidate all the photos before uploading them... :)

Hee... anyway, after all the 'outside' food we ate during the trip, I made sure that I cooked some home-cooked fare for hubby over the weekend. Bought some handmade thick mee sua from Malacca on our way back to Singapore so I just had to try it the very next day... :) Hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed the mee sua soup I cooked on Saturday - sometimes a simple dinner can be so uplifting.

Anyway, I digress too much. You must be wondering what happened to the steamed herbal chicken I was supposed to tell you all about... hee. That was part of Sunday's dinner and I must say that it was pure comfort food (that is, if you are a fan of herbs). It would have been even better had I cooked it with chicken thighs with the bones intact but I only had deboned chicken thighs on hand so I had to make do.


Steamed herbal chicken


Yum... :)

Ingredients:
  • 3 deboned chicken thighs (better to cook those with bones intact as I mentioned as the meat will be even more tender)
  • about 1 tablespoon sliced dang shen
  • about a handful red dates
  • 8 dried longan
  • 3 pieces huai shan
  • 5 pieces dang gui
  • 2 tablespoons wolfberries
  • 1 slice ginger (julien the slice of ginger)
  • 1-1.5 tablespoon oyster sauce
  • about 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon hua diao jiu
  • dashes of sesame oil
  • dashes of ground white pepper



The chinese herbs


Method:
  1. Marinate the chicken meat with all the ingredients.
  2. Place the chicken meat and all the ingredients on a piece of aluminium foil. Seal the ingredients and place the packet on a plate.
  3. Steam for about 40min (steam for at least an hour if cooking with chicken thighs that are not deboned).
  4. Serve hot with white fluffy rice.


Marinating in progress



Time to wrap it up!



Waiting for the water in the steamer to boil



Steaming....



It's ready! Fogging the lens...



Can you tell it's really piping hot? :)



There you go... a proper peek into the yummy packet of herbal chicken

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...