I had earlier confessed that one of my 2013 resolutions (I rarely made them in my life so when I made it for this year, I'm trying to stick by it!) is to learn to cook for the family and also shared a recipe I tried out, the Szechuan Vegetable soup and Lotus Root soup. For this post, I am sharing my third soup recipe which is also taught by my dear hubby (yes! You read it right!) and one of my favorite soup since my childhood which my late mum used to make, aka the ABC Soup!
I remembered I used to love putting this soup in my plate of rice and just plain eat my rice and drink the soup as it is. Oh, that and eating the soft mushy potatoes of course!
Btw, just in case you are wondering why is it named ABC soup when there is nothing resembling the letter A, B or C found on the soup... it is because ABC in this sense actually meant the vitamins A, B and C where you get vitamin ‘A’ from the carrots, ‘B’ vitamins from the potato, and ‘C’ from tomato. Tadaaaaaa! Mystery solved!
Ingredients:
1. Pork bones (boiled for about few minutes) (** You can also use kampung chicken)
2. 1 carrot (remove skin and chopped into half inch thick).
3. Dried scallops (optional - this will add sweetness to the soup)
4. 1 potato (remove skin and sliced or chopped into chunks - based on your liking)
5. 1 tomato (quartered)
6. 1 big red onion (remove skin)
* Not in picture: Salted/preserved vegetable (called 'Tai Thou Choi' in Cantonese)
Methods:
* Clean the pork by blanching in boiling water for few minutes, then drain off the water.
* Remove the skins for the potato and carrots and then chopped them into chunks or slices depending on your liking (I sliced them about half inch thick) Do note that the potato should not be too thin as it might crumbles off and muddied the soup.
* Quartered the tomato.
* Add all ingredients into slow cooker, add enough water to cover the ingredients with about an inch more.
* Put on high for an hour, before switching to low settings for about 6-7 hours.
(Note: If you use gas stove to boil this soup, you can simmer for 1 or more hours until the pork is tender.)
Picture below with ingredients just before adding hot water into slow cooker.
Outcome:
Hubby gave me 8/10 for this soup and said it should be saltier. Confession time: I forgot to put in the salted/preserved vegetable (called 'Tai Thou Choi' in Cantonese) when I dumped everything into the slow cooker! Only realised my mistake about 5th hour into the slow cooking in low mode when I tasted a sip and found the soup to be totally bland. Immediately went to the fridge and grabbed an inch thick of the salted/preserved vegetable, sliced it thinly (so that the salty-ness can seeped out to the soup faster) and put on high temperature for my slow cooker for an hour. Thank God the soup turns out fine, though, yes like hubby said should be saltier. Whooppsss...
I drenched a few soup spoons of the ABC soup into my kiddos plate of rice and hubby asked my almost 4 years old boy what he thinks of the soup mummy made and he went 'Mmmm it's yummy!' Ahhhh... The happy feeling you get when your child tells you your cooking (and soup) is yummy and better than grandma's! Ahhhhhhh.... *floating*
Ben had a bowl of the soup the next day when I made noodle soup with it and this time, both my kiddos guzzled all the soup after whacking their noodles. so I guess it's good, just need to remember MUST put salted/preserved vegetable before start making soup! Overall, I'm very happy with this attempt and very motivated to continue practising the Lotus Root soup and also ABC soup, especially after getting compliments from my kiddos (children are innocent and they don't lie!)
Also, just want to share some tips from my hubby on soup making:
1) The meat used in the soup here is actually pork bones, there is no need to get pork with lots of meat on it if you are not going to eat it after making the soup. Best is to use pork bones with bits of meat on it so you get the nutrients out of the bones and meat.
2) Making soup using slowcooker or stove is the same contrary to many beliefs that soup made using stove tastes better. Most important is you need to blanch the meat prior to cooking else you will get the so called different taste versus stove cooking.
3) It is good to put in the meat early as we want the nutrients when we drink the soup. Some people thought of putting the meat in the final hour of making the soup so that the soup is clear and sweet but in actual fact, there is no point drinking soup that is clear and not as nutritious since there is not enough time to cook the meat to allow the nutrients from the meat and bones to seep out into the soup.
4) When you make soup in a slow cooker, you need the ingredients to be in chunks size. Too small cubes in slow cooker (especially potatoes) will end up all broken and mashed after 6-8 hours in the slow cooker.
To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!
