Clear…

I had a post on this in 2011 but never mind, let’s just go through it again quickly.

I did mention then that my daughter would not eat bean curd sticks as she felt that they tasted like plastic. She would take the soup though so sometimes, other than the meat bones for the stock, I would add minced meat rolled to make meat balls and drop them into the soup. She loves those very much and would eat them and besides, that would add to the flavour of the stock and.

Well, this time around, I used chicken – the tips of the chicken wings…

…that my missus had chopped off and thrown back into the freezer. She had used the rest of the wings to cook her very nice baked chicken wings that we all loved a lot.

I boiled them in half a cooking pot of water together with four cloves of garlic…

…and in the meantime, I broke the bean curd sticks into smaller pieces and soaked them in hot boiling water…

…to soften. See the bubbles by the side? I wonder what caused those. Hence, I would usually rinse and wash a few times till I am satisfied that they are nice and clean and then I would drain away the water thoroughly.

When the stock had started boiling, I let it simmer for a while for the flavours to come out of the chicken and the garlic before putting in the bean curd sticks. You can add whatever seasoning you prefer according to taste but usually I would add a bit of salt and msg. This time around, however, I added some fish sauce/gravy and a bit of Cukup Rasa…and let the soup simmer for a while longer.

Turn off the heat and serve hot…

If my missus cooks this, she would probably add a little bit extra – some sweet corn perhaps…or cut tomatoes…or a few prawns. Of course this will change the taste but I would say that it is not necessarily better – some things are best left in its simplest form, unchanged. I wished I had some spring onions though, or some daun sup (Chinese celery) in the house that I could use for garnishing and for a little bit of colour but I didn’t and I was too lazy to fry some sliced shallots for this some purpose so we just had it like that – very simple but very nice – clear and refreshing.

My mother would always have soup at every meal all the years when we were growing up and this was one of my favourites…and seeing that today is Mother’s Day, I would like to share this song with all of you…

…especially all you mothers out there. A very Happy Mother’s Day to each and everyone and God bless you all always.