Tag: soup

• 

  PK’s Cheaters Pho Ga For One

  When someone mentions Vietnamese cuisine I immediately think of the famous Vietnamese noodle dish called Pho.

  Pho (pronounced ‘fur’ but without the hard r) is a modern take on more traditional dishes but the Vietnamese people rapidly took to this healthy “fast food” and then spread it around the globe.

  I imagine everyone has their own favourite style of Pho. Mine is a sweet and sour broth with some lightly poached chicken, lots of vegetables and tons of rice noodles. Simply multiply the ingredients below for each person you are serving.

  I go light on the chili factor (even none at all for my family) and then I use Sriracha hot sauce in my bowl to add some heat.

  Tip: Make the fried shallots ahead of time using my method here. They are an optional garnish but I feel they really “upgrade” this dish.

  You will be:

  1. Building the broth
  2. Poaching the chicken
  3. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • Broth for one:
      • 3 cups homemade chicken stock
      • a splash of fresh lime juice
      • 1.5 Tbsp fish sauce
      • a small chunk galangal (galanga)
      • a small chunk ginger
      • 1/2 cinnamon stick
      • 1 star anise
      • 1 tsp raw sugar
      • black peppercorns to taste, ground
      • 1 coriander root
    • Bowl for one:
      • 250g chicken tenderloins, sliced
      • 250g rice noodles, pre-softened in boiling water
      • a handful of torn coriander leaves
      • a handful of mung bean sprouts
      • a few sprigs of vietnamese coriander
      • 2 spring onions, white parts, sliced on an angle
      • jalepenos , sliced, to taste
      • 1/2 a lime (for people to adjust the fish sauce/lime juice balance)
      • fried shallots and garlic slices
  •  Equipment:
    • a long sharp knife
    • a chopping board
    • a grater
    • a large saucepan
    • a serving bowl

  Building the broth

  I use my home-made chicken stock because it starts you off with a broth that has been built up with chicken bones, vegetables and garlic.

  Making a starter broth this way allows you to subsequently build dish specific flavours on top of it and this is what we will do now.

  1. Add the 3 cups of chicken stock to the saucepan.
  2. Peel a chunk of galangal and a chunk of ginger and throw them into the pan whole.
  3. Add the:
     • splash of fresh lime juice
     • 1.5 Tbsp fish sauce
     • 1/2 cinnamon stick
     • 1 star anise
     • 1 tsp raw sugar
     • ground black peppercorns
     • 1 coriander root
  4. Let everything sit for 5 minutes, to infuse, if you have time.
  5. Put the saucepan on low heat and then gently simmer for about 10 minutes.

  Poaching the chicken

  1.  Add the 250g of sliced chicken tenderloins to the gently simmering pan of broth.
  2. Allow the chicken to cook for 5 minutes and then remove the pan from the heat (by this stage everything is cooked and you don’t want the chicken to overcook as it will go leathery).

  

  Serving

  Serve the broth over the rice noodles and vegetables. Garnish with slices of chili, fried shallots and even omelette and peanuts.

  Have in easy reach extra fish sauce, lime wedges and of course Sriracha sauce so you and your guests can adjust the taste to suit.

  

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  July 25, 2017

• 

  PK’s Creamy Cauliflower And Parmesan Soup With Pork Belly

  I was day dreaming about a new dish for dinner and thought it would be cool to try pork belly with this soup instead of bacon.

  Hope you like it.

  You will be:

  1. Making the pork belly.
  2. Making the cauliflower soup.
  3. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • a slice of pork belly for each serving (ingredients are here)
    • a good slug of olive oil
    • 1 celery stalk, rough chopped
    • 1/2 onion, rough chopped
    • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
    • 1 potato,  rough chopped
    • 3 cups PK’s Slow Cooker Chicken Stock
    • 1 bay leaf
    • 500g cauliflower florets
    • 1/2 cup milk
    • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
    • water to taste, add in small portions if soup is too thick
  •  Equipment:
    • a long sharp knife
    • a chopping board
    • kitchen shears
    • a deep pan
    • stick mixer
    • wooden spoon

  Making the pork belly

  Make and then chill a strip of pork belly for each serve. Please see the recipe here.

  

  Making the cauliflower soup

  1. Chuck a slug of olive oil into the pan and bring it to a medium low heat.
  2. Add and sweat the chopped:
     • 1 celery stalk
     • 1/2 brown onion
     • 1 garlic clove
  3. Add the bay leaf.
  4. Add the 500g cauliflower florets and 1 potato and sweat for another minute or so.
  5. Add the three cups of chicken stock and bring to the boil.
  6. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or the potato is cooked.
  7. Allow to cool and add the 1/2 cup of milk and blend with a stick mixer.
  8. Add small amounts of water if the soup is too thick for your liking (remember that we are about to add cheese which will thicken it further),
  9. Add the 1/2 cup parmesan cheese and mix with a wooden spoon or the like.

  Serving

  My original idea was to serve the soup with a piece of pork belly. I ended up doing so but chilled the soup and unlike the picture, chopped the pork belly into cubes. The pork belly’s skin was crisp enough to not be chewy but not be all about the crackling and the meat really complimented the soup’s gentle flavours.

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  May 7, 2017

• 

  PK’s NoRecipe Potato and Bacon Soup

  I love Potato and Bacon soup and make it in large batches primarily for a mid morning work snack. This saves me lots of money and I know I am eating healthily. The only salt is from the bacon and the salted margarine/butter blend.

  I add a few additional fresh ingredients to suit what is growing in my kitchen garden at the time. Below I added lots of chives as I have an excess at the moment.

  The basic idea though is that you sauté onion, bacon and potato in butter or olive oil until they are parboiled. You then add your liquid of choice to cover everything and bring to the boil. Then leave it simmering until the potatoes are cooked. You can leave it chunky but I generally blend it at this point and add a bit of milk to the portion I am not freezing.

  Hot Tip: If you are blending it and the result is too thick, add very small amounts of boiling water, stir and then taste again. I do this until I get a balance between taste and consistency.

  Below I used some of my home-made chicken stock that I made using bones from a roast chicken I did in my Weber charcoal BBQ (not my slow cooker version). This stock imparted a beautiful smokey flavour.

  Sweat the vegetables:

  

  Add liquid to cover, boil and then simmer until potatoes are cooked:

  

  Blend and serve:

  

   

  Hope you like it,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  February 7, 2017

• 

  Welchy’s Winter Warmers – Mushroom Soup!

  There’s nothing better on a cold winter’s night that to sit down and tuck into something hot! Whether it be a curry, casserole or soup…I love nothing more than eating a dish that warms right down to your bones!

  Mum has made soups all my life. As a kid, she may as well have put hearts and livers on a plate and put it in front of me. There was nothing worse than the idea of soup, let alone Mushroom soup. But as with most dishes, nostalgia tends to set in and I have a newfound appreciation of all things my mum cooked as a kid and how much I wish to be there again.

  This dish is about 10 minutes of prep (if you are slightly mad and enjoy cracking the stem of the mushroom off and then peeling each..and every…single…mushroom). And then 20-30 minutes simmering.

  Ingredients

  • 1 kg mushrooms, stems removed if you wish and peeled
  • 1 brown onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon butter
  • 6 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 cup thickened cream

  Method

  1. Melt butter in a Crock pot or large saucepan. Cook onion until partly softened. Add garlic and cook until onion is browned and softened.
  2. Add mushrooms and cook until lightly browned, stirring often so they don’t stick to the pan.
  3. Add the vegetable stock and season with salt and pepper.
  4. Bring to the boil and then allow to simmer for 20 minutes.
  5. Once the mushrooms are tender and cooked through, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
  6. Use an electric mixer to puree the soup (I personally like it to be slightly chunky, but puree a bit longer if you like a smooth soup).
  7. When ready to serve, stir in the cream and top with freshly chopped basil. And as always…enjoy!

  

  Written by

  lilwelchy

  ·

  May 19, 2016

• 

  PK’s Chicken Katsu Udon

  Chicken Katsu Udon is an amazingly dish, light enough for both summer and winter. I love it and could eat it every day :).

  This recipe will feed two adults for lunch. Add more noodles, chicken, vegetables, and broth, depending on your preferences, to bulk it up for dinner.

  You will be:

  1. Preparing the chicken.
  2. Frying the onion toppings.
  3. Preparing the other vegetables.
  4. Cooking the noodle broth and crumbed chicken
  5. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients
    • 1 large chicken breast, butterflied
    • ground rock salt, to taste
    • ground black pepper corns, to taste
    • white flour, enough to coat the chicken breast
    • panko bread crumbs, enough to coat the chicken breast
    • 1 egg, beaten egg
    • 1 brown onion, sliced
    • 1 cup Asian greens e.g. bok choy leaves and stems
    • 1 small handful torn coriander (cilantro) leaves
    • 1 packet of soft Udon noodles
    • 4 cups home-made chicken stock
    • olive oil and/or chili oil, enough to cover the base of the pan to half the depth of the chicken breast and a splash for frying the onions
  • Equipment
    • several chopping boards
    • a long sharp knife
    • a rolling pin or meat tenderiser
    • two large plates
    • one medium sized bowl for coating the chicken breasts
    • a medium sized saucepan for the broth and noodles
    • a deep frypan for shallow frying the crumbed chicken
    • paper towel to absorb excess oil
    • deep bowls for serving
    • tongs for cooking the chicken in the oil
    • tongs for adding the hot noodles to the serving bowls

  Steps:

  Prepare the chicken

  

  Steps:

  1. Take your chicken breast and butterfly it. I completely separate the halves at this stage, place them on a chopping board and bash the stuffing out of them using a rolling pin. This makes them really tender and easier to cook through without burning the outside crumb coating. This dish also works really well with chicken tenderloins (these are the pectoralis minor of a chicken and they don’t need tenderising).
  2. Salt and pepper them to taste and then successively coat them in flour, dip them in the egg and roll them in the panko crumbs.
  3. Refrigerate them for 30 minutes or as long as it takes you to prepare the rest of the dish.

  Fry the onions

  Steps:

  1. Thinly slice the 1 brown onion.
  2. Heat the oil in your deep fry pan.
  3. Add the onions and crisp them up, moving them continuously.
  4. Pop them into the fridge after soaking up excess oil with paper towel.
  5. Clean the fry pan with some paper towel so you get rid of any burnt onion bits.

  

  Prepare the vegetables

  

  Steps:

  1. Roughly chop your Asian greens and other vegetables of choice. No need to cook the greens as they will quickly steam as you add them to the hot broth at serving time.
  2. Tear the coriander leaves to make a nice garnish.
  3. Hot Tip – Bring the crumbed chicken breasts out of the fridge at this point and allow them to return to room temperature. This will allow you to cook them golden brown on the outside and avoid a raw center.

  Cook the noodle broth and crumbed chicken

  

  You are going to have to keep an eye on two processes here. Sorry 🙂

  Steps:

  1. Add the stock and noodles to the saucepan.
  2. Heat the oil in the deep frypan so it is lightly bubbling.
  3. While you are lightly frying the chicken, slowly bring the noodle broth to the boil.
  4. When golden brown on both sides, remove the chicken from the oil and pat dry with paper towel.
  5. Slice the chicken.

  The panko crumbs are so light that I prefer a longer slower fry:

  Cooking the noodles in the broth as it comes to the boil:

  

  The sliced chicken:

  

  Serving

  Steps:

  1. Add the desired amount of noodles to each bowl using tongs.
  2. Add the desired amount of greens and vegetables to each bowl.
  3. Pour in the desired amount of broth to each bowl.
  4. Top with some of the torn coriander and the fried onions.

  

  Happy slurping,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  March 10, 2016