I love spending Sundays making stock. Such a relaxing thing to do and makes the apartment smells so nice. Also if I wanted to eat instant noodles on a Wednesday, I can use my own stock instead of using the powdered soup base. Or use it to cook lentils instead of water. Or add cooked rice to make a really quick congee.
So much possibilities!
One of my favorite soups that my mom makes is the chicken and snow fungus soup. It's sooooo comforting. I've never used snow fungus but I was in a Chinese market and decided to pick up a pack. I just like eating them as I slurp the soup. My mom adds a bunch of other Chinese herbs and stuff which I'm not familiar with but......using the snow fungus for the first time is a small step forward, I guess.
While I was in the Chinese market, I also got a bag of these Shanghai style noodles. These are pretty awesome. Cheap and usually it takes about 1 - 2 minutes to cook. Talk about a quick meal, eh?
-------------------------------------------------------- Stock 1 whole chicken 1 daikon (roughly chopped) 1 onion (cut in half) 4 scallions 1 knob of ginger (skin on, lightly smashed) 1 snow fungus (soaked for 1 hour, rinsed, and roughly chopped) Soy sauce Sesame oil Salt and pepper
Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup 1 pack of noodles Scallions (sliced into thin strips) Cilantro Miso paste Chili oil Bok choy
1. Put the whole chicken into a large pot and fill it up with water. Bring the water to a boil, lower the heat a little and let it simmer for 15mins. This removes the impurities for a cleaner stock. 2. Take the chicken out and rinse it. Clean the pot and place the chicken back in. Also put in daikon, onion, scallions, garlic, and snow fungus. Add enough water to cover everything and bring it to a boil. Once it's boiling, lower the heat to low, and let it simmer away. 3. After an hour, take the chicken out (keep simmering the stock). When it is COOL enough to handle, pull all the meat out. Return the bones to the pot and simmer for another 30mins. 4. After 30mins, taste it. Season it with soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, and pepper to taste. 5. In another pot, bring water to a boil and cook the noodles according to the package. 6. While you wait for the noodle water to boil, add a tablespoon of miso paste to your soup noodle bowl and add a ladle of chicken stock. Stir and mix in the miso paste. 7. When the noodles are done cooking, add the bok choy into the pot along with the noodles and cook for 30secs. 8. Take the noodles and bok choy out of the pot and into the noodle bowl. Add the chicken meat and top it off with cilantro and thin slices of scallions. 9. Ladle in more broth and add chili oil.
