I really love canh. What is canh? It's the Vietnamese term for soup. Most Vietnamese meals never go without any canh. It accompanies rice and the main dishes. You can have canhas a side, or I sometimes scoop some canh into my bowl of rice. What's great about canh is that it's actually quite simple to make. It's usually a basic soup and so doesn't require many ingredients. One can make a canh with only a vegetable, a protein, some salt and water. It's a great way to try and taste new vegetables!
It's common to make canh out of greens and one canh that my mom makes is canh xà lách son, xà lách son being watercress. I like watercress in its raw form in salads, but it's pretty tasty cooked too. Try it out!
Canh Xà Lách Son (Vietnamese Watercress Soup) This soup can be made in under 15 minutes.
* oil * 1 Tbsp very finely diced onion * 1-2 Tbsp ground pork * salt and pepper, to taste * watercress, washed and cut in 3" sections (I just use scissors) * 2 cups water
In a small pot, heat up oil. Add onion and pork. Season with salt and pepper. Once the pork is cooked through, add 2 cups of water Add the watercress. Bring the water to a boil. Turn off. Taste and adjust seasoning to taste. Tada!
I have been totally neglecting this blog in 2011. Now I have a little backlog of posts and don't really know where to start. I will start with this crab bisque that I made back in January and hopefully, this will get the ball rolling!
I really wanted to make a bisque but killing a crustacean made me nervous. I collected my courage and headed to my nearby Asian grocery store, where I debated between lobster and crab. The lobsters seemed emaciated so I finally came home with a very large crab in a paper bag. I have to admit that he freaked me out a bit, trying to attack me with his claws. But I won in the end and enjoyed a lovely bisque.
Cooking a crab I may have called my mom in a panic to ask her what to do with a crab. A helpful hint she did provide is that since I bought a Dungeness crab there was no need for added salt since the salty ocean water would make the crab salty. I thought picking out the crabmeat was the most labour intensive step of this recipe but fresh crabmeat is worth it!
* 1 Dungeness crab, 1 to 1-½ lb. each
Place the crab in a large pot (I used tongs to not get clawed!). Add about a cup of water - it should not cover the crab but will steam it. Add half an onion. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes. Twist off the legs and claws and set aside. Place the crab on its back and pull off the small triangular apron-shaped shell flap, then insert your thumb underneath the top shell and pull it off. Remove the dark gray intestines and the feather-shaped white spongy gills from the body and discard. Rinse the crab body well. Break the body in half and remove the meat from the cavities. Crack the legs in several places and remove the meat. Set aside the crabmeat in a bowl. Crack the large claws and carefully remove the meat from each claw in a single piece. Slice the meat and set aside for garnish. Using kitchen shears, cut the shells into small pieces; set aside for the broth.
This guy donated himself to my bisque. Thank you!
Making bisque
* 1 Tbsp unsalted butter * 1 small yellow onion, chopped * 1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped * 1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped * ¾ cups chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned) * ¾ cups dry white wine such as Sauvignon Blanc * 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour * 3 cups water * ½ cup heavy cream * pinch of cayenne pepper * salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, carrot and celery and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft, about 15 minutes. Add the crab shells, tomatoes and wine. Sprinkle the flour over the top and stir to mix well. Add water and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Strain the broth through a sieve and transfer to a clean soup pot.
Making the crab broth.
Place the pot over low heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Stir in the cream and cayenne and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add the reserved crabmeat and heat through. Ladle into bowls and garnish with the claw meat. Tada!
The bisque provided a concentrated flavour of crab. I loved the orange hue of the soup. I did not blend any of the meat so I could enjoy the lumps of meat with the broth. It's a bit time consuming, but well worth the effort. If you want to wow guests this is the recipe to make. You can prepare the broth in advance and just need to heat it up, add the cream and season right before serving. It will be a guaranteed winner!
This is the third recipe from foodtv.ca's French Food at Home. I really enjoy Laura Calder's show and I have an endless list of recipes of hers I'd like to make. I like that her dishes look appetizing and are usually fairly easy to make. She also has a bit of quirky personality that I enjoy.
For this soup, I spied fresh cranberry beans at the farmer's market. I just couldn't resist buying them and figuring out what to make later. With basil in abundance in the garden, making pesto for soupe au pistou seemed like a perfect idea.
* 1 tablespoon olive oil * 1 onion, chopped * 1 cup green beans, cut into ½-inch pieces * 1 potato, peeled and diced * 1 cup carrots, diced * salt and pepper, to taste * 4 cups vegetable broth or water * 1 bay leaf * 1 sprig thyme * 1 cup fresh beans or cooked beans of your choice * 1 cup zucchini, diced small * 2 tomatoes, seeded, and diced * pesto, homemade or store-bought, for garnish * Parmesan cheese, for garnish
Heat the oil in a sauté pan and gently cook the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the green beans, potato, carrots and beans (if uncooked). Pour the vegetable broth or water. Season with salt and pepper, add the bay leaf and the thyme. Bring to a boil, and simmer 10 minutes. Add the zucchini (and the beans if you are using cooked or canned beans) and continue cooking until all the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes longer. Stir through the tomato. Ladle the soup into bowls. (Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs). Add a spoonful (or more!) of pesto to each bowl. Tada!
Whilethe pesto is only a garnish, it is a defining ingredient in this soup. I thought it added a whole lot of flavour. Without it, the soup was a bit of a bland vegetable soup. I loved the fresh creamy beans in the soup.
I realize I have not posted Vietnamese food nor recipes in a while. Well, a visit to my mom's is always a great source for Vietnamese food posts. And what better way to highlight this post than by entering Delicious Vietnam, a blogging event featuring Vietnamese food, hosted this month by Anh from A Food Lovers Journey.
As with every visit home, my mom asked me what I wanted to eat during my stay. In addition to enjoying bánh giò (steamed dumpling with ground pork) and bánh ít trần (mung bean stuffed dumpling), I also requested a dish that we do not often eat: bún măng vịt (bún=vermicelli noodles, măng=bamboo shoots, vịt=duck). I love this soup because of the broth, strongly flavoured from the dry bamboo, the crunch texture of the bamboo (kind of reminds of straw mushrooms - does that help imagine it?) and the fatty duck meat dipped into nước mắm gừng (ginger fish sauce).
Just as phở, the most well known Vietnamese soup (and arguably the most well known Vietnamese dish), bún măng vịt hails from Northern Vietnam. Unlike phở, it is not a mainstream soup and cannot be easily found on restaurant menus. It is distinct due to the use of dry bamboo shoots, which imparts a unique flavour, resulting in a dark, tea-like, slightly pungent broth. While dry bamboo can be found in Asian supermarkets (so my mother tells me), she only uses the ones purchased in Vietnam. My grandmother goes to the market herself and pays a premium for the lower part of the bamboo shoots that are more tender since bamboo shoots can be fibrous. So unfortunately, I cannot speak to the use of store-bought dry bamboo shoots - they may be just tougher.
Bún măng vịt (Duck and Bamboo Vermicelli Soup) When I called my mom and asked if we could have this soup, I did not give her enough time for preparation. You should plan for a good day because soaking the bamboo shoots take a long time. Unfortunately, I wasn't around when my mom prepared this dish, so there are no how-to pictures.
* 200 g dry bamboo shoots
Soak bamboo for 2-3 hours (or overnight) in boiling water and rinse. Repeat at least twice until softened (this step also helps remove some of the bitterness from the bamboo). The bamboo will have softened and also expanded. Pull apart the softened bamboo into long strings, following along the natural lines of the bamboo.
Dry bamboo.
For the soup * oil * onion * 1 tbsp salt, or to taste * 2-3 tsp sugar * one whole duck, skin on * slices of ginger
In a large soup pot, saute the bamboo with onion in oil. Season with salt and sugar (the sugar helps balance the bitterness of the bamboo) and add enough water to cover the bamboo shoots. Turn up the heat until the water boils and turn it down to a simmer. Meanwhile, cut the duck into pieces. Season the duck with more salt and pieces of ginger. Roast the pieces of duck at 350F for 20 minutes and broil to get a golden skin, about 10 minutes on low. (This step is to render the fat and get the meat golden - the duck pieces can also be fried in a pot.) Add the cooked duck meat to the soup and add more water to cover everything. Bring to a simmer. After an hour or two of cooking, remove the duck pieces if they are cooked so they do not overcook and break apart. Continue cooking the soup for additional 1-2 hours, for a total of 3-4 hours. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and sugar.
Duck leg and bamboo shoots.
For nước mắm gừng - ginger fish sauce * 1 tbsp water * 4 tbsp fish sauce * 3 tbsp sugar * ginger, greatly minced, or even grated * lime juice
Nước mắm gừng (ginger fish sauce).
To serve * bún (rice vermicelli) - how to cook bún * green onion, sliced thinly * coriander, washed and leaves picked off
In individual bowls, add a handful of cooked vermicelli, top with the soup. Garnish with green onions and coriander. Serve with nước mắm gừng (ginger fish sauce) to dip the meat. Tada!
I came across Zucchini & Lentil Cold Soup, the winning recipe of No Croutons Required: Zucchiniin June and made it right after I read the recipe. This is saying much because I have an ever growing list of recipes I want to make and some of them have been there for months, if not years. What attracted me to this recipe was what usually attracts me to recipes: easy and quick to prepare, healthy and looks tasty. Zucchini is also in season right now and I love the look of the pretty green dots from the zucchini.
Zucchini & Split Pea Cold Soup From Sweet Artichoke. I only altered the recipe slightly. One change was accidental; I really thought I was using lentils when my boyfriend A said something about split peas. I then realized I did use peas instead.
* oil * 1 tsp ground cumin * 2 zucchini, unpeeled and diced * 1 clove garlic, minced * 150 g yogurt (I used low fat) * 1 cup vegetable stock (for a homemade recipe) * salt and pepper, to taste * 1 cup cooked yellow split peas (the original recipe called for lentils)
Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat. Add the cumin and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the zucchini and garlic, until the zucchini is cooked through. Season with salt and pepper. Allow the zucchini mixture to cool down and set aside one tablespoon or so for garnish. In a blender, place the zucchini mixture and yogurt and blend until very smooth. Add some vegetable broth until the desired consistency. Add the cooked split peas (do not blend them) and mix in. Garnish with a spoonful of the zucchini mixture. Tada!
Cooked split peas and zucchini.
I've made this soup a couple of times already because it was such a success. I think my boyfriend said that it was one of the best I've made! While Sweet Artichoke mentions her husband preferred the soup hot, I actually liked it cold. I find the coolness of the soup went well with the tanginess of the yogurt and I loved the cumin flavour. (On a side note, I'm excited I have a new go-to blog for vegetarian recipes and I love that the recipes come in French and English - this is going to help me with my French culinary terms!)
With some of the leftover lobsters (my mom barbecued the lobster tails), my mom stir fried some and also made soup. I recalled my sister and I really enjoying a seafood and corn soup that came dry from a package. My mom decided to reproduce this soup with lobster.
Lobster and Corn Soup - Serves 4 As mentioned above, my mom used leftover lobster (no tail) - Vietnamese don't waste food! You could use a whole lobster and add the meat from the lobster tail - much more decadent this way!
* 6 cups (1.5 L) water * 1 lobster, uncooked * 1 piece of ginger * 2 ears of corn, kernels sliced off - save the cobs * 1 beaten egg * green onion, sliced thinly
Boil water and add the lobster. Add a piece of ginger and the corn cobs. Skim the scum off the surface. Once the lobster is cooked, remove any lobster meat and roe you can get. Add the sliced corn kernels and the lobster back into the soup. Season with salt and pepper. Turn down the heat to a simmer. Slowly pour the beaten egg while stirring the soup with a fork (or chopstick!). Top with green onions. Tada!
I've made this soup a couple of times but had a hard time taking a good picture. I got a so-so picture this time. Although the soup is simple, it is quite hearty due to the lentils. Perfect soup for a light meal! You get your protein from the lentils and the rest of the vegetables round out the flavours. It will definitely become a part of my soup répertoire.
Red Lentil Soup From Ricardo & Friends. Ricardo suggests finishing the soup with oil and vinegar. I don't even bother and it's good as-is.
* 2 carrots, sliced * 1 stalk celery, diced * 1 onion, chopped * 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped * 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin * 2 tablespoons olive oil * 6 cups vegetable broth * 1 can diced tomatoes (14oz) * 1 cup red lentils * 2 bay leaves * 1 sprig fresh thyme * salt and pepper, to taste * dried chili flakes (optional)
In a large pot, cook the onion, garlic, carrots and celery with the cumin in the oil. Season with salt, pepper and dried chili flakes. Add the broth, tomatoes, lentils, bay leaves and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the vegetables and lentils are tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. In a blender, purée until smooth. Add more broth (or water) if necessary. Adjust the seasoning. Tada!
Cooking the vegetables and lentils before purée-ing it.
How timely that I noticed the theme for No Croutons Required a day after I tried my hand at making a Thai hot & sour soup. The theme for January is Thai cuisine! I have been wanting to replicate the hot & sour soup at Bahn Thai that I love so much. I've had a chance to eat there a few times recently (since I work down the street from the restaurant now) and always enjoy the soup, included in their lunch combo. I think I've figured out a good recipe, though it's still not exactly the same. I think theirs is sweeter and thicker, while mine has a lot more ingredients.
Thai Hot & Sour Soup This soup is very easy. The challenging part was just tasting the broth and adjusting it to get the perfect sour, sweet and hot balance. Unlike Chinese hot & sour soup which uses vinegar, this Thai version uses tamarind and lime juice.I used a hard tofu so the tofu wouldn't break down but I think a softer tofu is typically used. If you want to thicken the soup, simply dilute a bit of cornstarch into a tablespoon of water and add the mixture at the end.
1.5 L vegetable broth (I threw in a piece of lemongrass when I made my vegetable broth) piece of lemongrass (if you didn't flavour make your own broth) 1-2 tbsp sugar, or to taste 1-2 tbsp tamarind paste, or to taste 1-2 tbsp lime juice, or to taste 1 tsp salt, or to taste 1-2 tsp chili paste, or to taste a handful of shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly a handful of enoki mushrooms a handful of bamboo (purchased in a can) small piece of tofu, sliced thinly (other ingredients that would be great: baby corn, water chestnuts, snow peas) egg, slightly beaten (optional)
Heat up the broth. Add all of the ingredients into the broth. Taste the broth and adjust with the tamarind paste, sugar, salt and chili to strike the perfect balance. When you have the perfect broth and the ingredients are cooked, turn down the heat so the soup is not boiling. Slowly pour in the beaten egg with one hand while stirring the soup with the other hand. Tada!
Bamboo and mushrooms.
Shiitake and enoki mushrooms.
This soup would be perfect for someone with a cold!
It was actually a balmy 18C today. However, a week or so ago, it was getting cold and I was watching an episode of Chef at Home, in which Michael Smith was making a Mediterranean chicken soup. I thought it'd be nice to try another version of chicken soup, even though I really enjoy my tried and tested homemade recipe. I was not 100% sure how I would feel about ingredients such as red pepper and olives in chicken soup, but it was enjoyable and I would definitely add this to my soup rotation.
Mediterranean Chicken Soup Adapted from Chef at Home. I searched in vain for Israeli couscous. I decided to replace it with barley and really enjoyed it - I've been adding barley to other soups as well. I also reduced the amount of garlic and chicken (the original recipe uses a whole chicken). Otherwise, the quantities can be taken as suggestions - I only used half a head of fennel (leftover from the homemade ketchup).
* oil * 1 onion, peeled and chopped * 3-4 garlic cloves, minced * 1 head fennel, chopped * 1 zucchini, chopped * 1 red pepper, seeded and chopped * 2-3 fresh tomatoes, chopped * salt and pepper, to taste * 1 L (4 cups) homemade chicken broth, or store-bought * 1 cup barley * 2 bay leaves * 1 tbsp dried oregano * 6 sprigs fresh thyme * dried chili flakes 1 cup chicken, cooked * 1 can chick peas, drained (398mL) * a handful of olives, pits removed
In a large pot, add some oil and turn on the heat. Cook the onion and garlic until softened. Add the chopped vegetables: fennel, zucchini, red pepper and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Once the vegetables have softened a bit, pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the barley, bay leaves, oregano, thyme and dry chili flakes. Once the barley is cooked, add the chickpeas, olives and chicken until heated through. If the soup is too thick, add water. Taste and adjust seasoning accordingly. Tada!
The cold weather is coming and I like to find refuge in soups. I thought about bún mộc (vermicelli & pork meatball soup) and realized I never made it last year. I had also recently seen the recipe on the food blog Ravenous Couple. It consists of bún (rice vermicelli) and mộc, which are meatballs made of pork and studded with wood ear mushrooms - I like the addition of the mushrooms which add a crunchy texture to the meatballs.
This soup definitely can stand alone as a meal. It's also one of those very easy recipes, especially if you buy the ready made meat as I did. I just throw in some napa cabbage for added vegetable even though it's not traditional. I'm actually not sure what's traditional. I had it in Vietnam and it was basically noodles and pork.
So I've thought about writing a post about chả; however, I have gotten around to it. Let's say it's in the works... The basic chả is in pork form and is the basis for many Vietnamese dishes, such as chả giò (spring rolls - and I can't believe I still don't have a post about this!) and cơm tấmchả (broken rice with pork meatloaf). You can buy chảsống (literally raw meat), pre-seasoned ground pork in the freezer of your Asian grocery store to make this dish. I'm sure you could grind your own pork to make this dish but I was looking for a specific texture that I knew the frozen stuff would provide. The 1 lb package is a bit steep at $4.99 but I used a quarter of it to make 2 good portions.
Bún Mộc (Vermicelli & Pork Meatball Soup)
* handful of wood ear mushrooms, soaked and drained * 100 g chảsống (pre-seasoned raw ground pork mixture), thawed * 4 cups Vietnamese flavoured chicken broth * 2 cups napa cabbage, thinly sliced * bún, cooked rice vermicelli * green onion, sliced thinly as garnish
Mix the ground pork with the rehydrated mushrooms. Shape into small meatballs. Heat up the chicken broth. Drop the meatballs into the broth. Add the napa cabbage. When the cabbage and meat is cooked (about 10 min), turn off the heat. In a bowl of rice vermicelli, ladle soup over it. Garnish with green onion and top with ground pepper. Tada!
I had been planning to make mushroom soup before Thanksgiving but never got around to it so I still had leftover mushrooms. In addition, we scored very inexpensive shiitake mushrooms during our visit to St. Jacobs Farmer's Market (we had our eye on the mushrooms and when we returned at the end of the day, the price had gone down!). Therefore, mushroom soup seemed like a perfect starter for our Thanksgiving meal. My sister's fiancé D doesn't like the texture of mushrooms so we figured we would purée it, drawing inspiration from our soup at La Foumangerie.
Mushroom Soup - Serves 8 I made this soup dairy free for my mom and it was very good. However, you could start off sautéing the mushrooms in butter and add cream at the end. I don't have exact measurements but you don't really need it...
* oil (or butter) * 4-5 cups assorted mushrooms, washed and sliced roughly (we had button, shiitake and oyster mushrooms) * salt, to taste * pepper, to taste * thyme leaves from 5-6 sprigs, or to taste * 1 cup white wine, or to taste * 2 cups vegetable broth or chicken broth
Sauté mushrooms in oil in a large pot. Season with salt and pepper. Add thyme leaves (you can also add the stalks but remember to remove them before puréing it). Once the mushrooms are cooked and softened, add the white wine. Bring to a boil and allow the wine to reduce. Add broth and bring to a boil again. Purée the soup in batches and return it to the pot (or use an immersion blender if you have one). If it's too thick, add some water or more broth. Taste and adjust seasoning. Garnish with thyme and sour cream. Tada!
While my mom visited, she asked me what I wanted for dinner. Yes, I've said this before and I'll say it again: I am totally spoiled! It's been getting colder and it was rainy. Soup is the perfect meal for such weather and I had a sudden craving for wonton soup. It was also a perfect choice because I wanted to clean my freezer and so I was able to use up some of the frozen shrimp I had.
Wonton Soup - Makes about 50 wontons
Wontons Irarely make this dish on my own because I thought it was rather involved. However, it wasn't too time consuming. A package of wonton wrappers makes a lot of wontons, but you may as well make a large number of wontons, freeze them and then enjoy them whenever you want. While I used ground pork and shrimps, these could easily be substituted for ground chicken or turkey, or other seafood like scallops.
150g ground pork 12 shrimps 2 tbsp onion, minced finely 1 tsp salt ½ tsp ground pepper 2 tsp sesame oil a package of wonton wrappers
Add all of the ingredients, except the wrappers, into a food processor and blend until the meat mixture becomes a paste. Add 1-2 teaspoons of the meat mixture onto the middle of the least floured side of a wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half, two opposing corners together, to make a triangle (refer to pictures below). Gather both sides and squish together to make a little dumpling. Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add 5-6 wontons and cook until they float (about 2 minutes) on medium-high. Once they are cooked, soak them in cold water so they don’t stick.
Wonton wrappers and ingredients for the filling.
Adding the meat mixture on a wrapper and folding it in two.
Gathering the wrapper to make a perfect little package!
Wontons can be frozen in a bag for later. Cooking them in water.
Wonton Broth Broth for wonton soup is just a Vietnamese chicken broth (actually, my mom used turkey bones from our Thanksgiving turkey!), with the added flavour of dried shrimps. If you already have broth in the freezer like I usually do, just heat it up and add a handful or so of dried shrimp. Turn off the heat. Let the shrimp flavours seep in for 15 minutes and remove them (according to my mom, leaving them there too long can result in a fishy broth). You could also skip the dried shrimp like my sister does. Putting Wonton Soup Together Wonton soup can be enjoyed as a meal; adding noodles and some vegetables help bulk it up. It can also be served as a starter, just serve a few wontons in a bowl of broth. chicken broth vegetables of your choice (thin carrot sticks, bok choy and shiitake mushroom slices are great) cooked wontons egg noodles sliced char siu pork, optional (Chinese BBQ pork can be purchased at Asian grocery stores) green onion, sliced, as garnish coriander, as garnish
Heat up the chicken broth. Add vegetables of your choice into the broth until cooked. Meanwhile, spread a handful of noodles onto a plate and microwave for a minute (this will prevent the noodles from getting soggy). Place the noodles and cooked wontons in a bowl. Spoon the hot broth into the bowls. Add the vegetables and char siu. Garnish with green onion and coriander. Tada! Shanghai bok choy. Cooking noodles and heating up wontons.
