Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Chilli

I'm celebrating year 2011 with warm and hearthy soup for the coming cold wintery days that caught us by surprise with sudden snowfall on 26, November, 2010! It was expected to be colder and harsher winter in the EU but the sudden snow fall on that day caused much inconveniences and traffic woes that lasted for more than a week! The freezing gloomy days ahead called out for comfort food desperately! All I could think of was a hearty, filling and delicious meal where everyone can dug in as much as they like to their heart's content :-D So, the family agreed on... soup. Not just any soup but Pumpkin Soup with a little twist in the finalé.

This soup is one of my family's favourite whenever we can find quality pumpkins in season and one thing for sure they keep longer unrefrigerated unlike other types of squashes or marrows of the same genus. My favourite choices are butternut and kabocha. It's an easy recipe that is suitable for vegetarian as well. You can also omit the crème fraîche and it tasted just as creamy but a little of it goes a long way. In my family, there is no compromising of replacing crème fraîche with other sort of cream replacement! Only thing permitted is evaporated milk for coconut milk and that IF I don't have any in the pantry :-P

In this recipe, I tried roasting the butternut chunks instead of cooking them straight in the pot like I usually did (and like most soup recipes I tried before). I must say that roasting brings out the sweetness in butternut squash and gave this soup a velvety texture with nuttiness flavour I loved so much. I definitely roast my pumpkin in future not only for soup but in purée for pies and desserts! To round it up... I added some chopped chillies to boost my immune system! Actually, I was craving for something really hot with lots of spiciness and only Kimchi came to my mind but I didn't want the whole apartment screamed to open the windows and doors for fresh air with minus degree and snowed outside! Well, I have to settle for plain chillies :-P

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Chilli

Serves 4-6 portions

1 butternut squash , ± 800 g - 1kg, peeled and deseeded

30 ml Olive Oil

15 g Butter

2 Yellow Onions - medium size, diced

1 clove Garlic, thinly sliced

2 Red Chillies, deseeded and finely chopped

850 ml Vegetable stock/Chicken Stock (boiled hot)

60 ml Crème Fraîche, plus more to serve

Method:

1. Heat oven to 200 ºC/180 C fan.

2. Cut the squash into 4 cm cubes, then toss in a large roasting pan with half the olive oil. Roast for 30 mins, turning once during cooking, until golden and soft.

3. While the squash cooks, melt the butter with the remaining oil in a large pot, then add the onions, garlic and ¾ of the chilli. Cover and cook on a very low heat for 15-20 mins until the onions are completely soft.

4. Tip the squash into the pan, add the stock and crème fraîche, then whizz with a stick blender until smooth. Reheat gently and season to taste. Serve the soup in bowls with crème fraîche and garnish with remaining chopped chilli.

Note:

If you feel fresh chilli is too strong, you can use chilli flakes instead.

*For Non-vegetarian version, you can add in some chopped Chorizo (my favourite is 'Extra Spicy' ) and omit the chillies if you want :-) If you use chopped Chorizo and add it in Step 3, beware your soup will have a layer of reddish chilli oil. What I did was sautéd the Chorizo separately and drizzle some on the soup just before serving.

Stir-fried Chayote Greens With Brown Mushrooms In Miso

I was asked by my neighbour, if I seen or heard this 'Loong Sou Choy' aka 'Dragon Beard' . Ok, I know my Chinese dialects are rusty (I mean since Cantonese it's not my mother tongue) here but I knew what she's referring too. I told her that I bought some ( 2 bundles of 250 g each for less than 0.50 € !) because the price was very, very cheap at the local Tesco supermarket here and my family loves this vegetable. She's not sure of this plant that's why she didn't buy any when she saw at the fresh market. As I explained more to her about this 'Loong Sou Choy', she exclaimed that she bought 2 large 'Buddha's Palms' for soup (Chayote or as I called it 'Boxing Glove') and didn't know that these 2 vegetables are the same! Now, why farmers have to create confusion to end users like us? Buddha's Palm and Dragon's Beard??? Buddha's Palm hold by Dragon's Beard? Hmmm... I'm getting confused here as well :-D

Oh well... I have a 2/3 box of miso left and a box of nice Swiss Brown Mushrooms. I need to clear some space for tomorrow's grocery shopping and with heavy rain and storms predicted for next few days, I better stock up my fridge and pantry as well. Now, about this Miso paste, first time I tasted this product, it reminded me of Tau Cheo or Salted/Fermented/Preserved Soyabeans. This Salted Soyabean product is available in 3 versions - whole beans, coarsely chopped beans and finely chopped beans. I love the addition of Salted Soyabean paste in Ayam Pongteh - without it you will face the wrath of a Peranakan (Baba & Nyonya)!!! Without this magic paste, it's not Ayam Pongteh! :-D

With what I have, this is what came out from the pan... It sounded weird but it turned out very delicious though. There's no addition of salt or stock in this dish... :-) The Miso provides all that!

Stir-fried Chayote Greens With Brown Mushrooms in Miso

Serves 2-3

2oo g Chayote Greens/Shoots - wash & use only tender parts

1 small box Swiss Brown Mushrooms (or any mushrooms about 150 g)

2-3 cloves Garlic - minced

1 medium Carrot

1 Tbl Miso paste

Cooking oil

1/2 cup sake

1 cup water

Method:

1. Wash and trim off any hard stems and spoilt leaves. Trim short the tendrils if it's too long :-D Separate the leaves and tender stems and tendrils.Drain and set aside.

2. Clean the mushrooms and remove any grits. Slice into thin pieces or you can quartered them.

3. Wash and julienne the carrot into thin strips. Set aside.

4. Mix the miso with sake until smooth paste (Miso comes in thick paste so, you need to dilute it before usage.)

5. In a deep pan/ wok, add some cooking oil. When the pan is very hot, add in the minced garlic and stir until fragrant (but not burnt!). Add in the julienned carrot. Give a quick mix.

6. Add in the mushrooms; Mix well until slightly wilted.

7. Add in the stems and tendrils; stir quickly as we want the stems to cook evenly first. Then add in the tender leaves and young shoots. Mix throughly.

8. Pour in the water; This will reduce a bit the heat. Now, add in the miso and sake mixture. Give a quick stir because we don't want to destroy the goodness of miso. Stir the vegetables throughly. You can add extra water if you want extra gravy/sauce.

9. Dish out and serve as side dish or steamed hot rice.

Note: You can adjust the quantity of miso by add in half of the mixture first because miso is salty. Then you add in more if you like. For me, the amount I added into the sake mixture was enough for that quantity of vegetable and 1 cup of water used.

Enjoy!!!

Yakigyoza - Japanese Pan Fried Dumplings

If you like Dim Sums, definitely you like gyoza dumplings. Regardless how you called it and from which country, there bound to be similarity! As for me, I don't bother which country created this delicious morsels first. It existed and I'm going to learn how to make it and eat all I could ☺. Seems that any Oriental household, the females in the family had been taught somehow at least one type of such dumplings be it Xiao Long Bao, Sui Gow, Siu Mai or Har Gow. Most of these dumplings are meat based like pork or beef but also seafood based like fish, prawns and vegetables.

I normally stashed some wrappers like Spring Rolls wrappers, Wonton or Gyoza wrappers in several shapes and sizes. It's a saviour for quick meal because you can make in advance dozens or hundreds of this dumplings with these wrappers and freeze them in portions for later use. One of my mom's friends taught us to dry left over Wonton wrappers and use it as broad, flat, squarish noodles in soups or stir-fries, like pasta. She always gave us bunches of it because she's a Wonton Noodle Seller ☺.

Yakigyoza - Pan Fried Dumplings

1 Packet Gyoza/ Sui Gow/ Pot Stickers Wrappers

(White opaque round pastries made from eggs and wheat)

2 tsp Sesame Oil

Some vegetable oil for cooking

For Fillings (Mix all into smooth paste):

100 g Chinese Cabbage - hard stems removed & finely chopped

150 g Minced Pork

100 g Chinese Flower Chives - hard stems remove and cut about 3" in length OR 2 stalks Spring Onions - finely chopped

1 tsp Finely Grated young/fresh Ginger

2 cloves Garlic - grated

1 tbl Thin Soya Sauce - Japanese brand like Kikkoman

3 tsp Sake

2 tsp Mirin

Generous Pinch White Pepper

Dipping Sauce:

80 ml Japanese Rice Vinegar (you can use Chinese Rice/Glutinous Rice vinegar)

8o ml Thin Soya Sauce

2 tsp Sesame Oil or Chilli Oil (S&B Chilli Oil/La Yu Oil)

Young Ginger - julienne thinly (optional-I like to add it into the soy sauce mix)

Method:

1. To make Dipping Sauce; put all ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine. Divide among smaller sauce dishes.

2. Wrapping - Lay a wrapper in your palm and put about 2 - 3 tsps of filling in the middle. Lightly dampen the edge of wrapper with water, then fold the edges together to form semicirlcle. Press firmly to enclose the fillings. Lightly dampen the curved edge of wrappers again, then overlap the edge to form pleats (you can watch a video here.) Put dumplings on a lined tray with Cling Wrap. Repeat the whole procedures again until finished. Refrigerator dumplings until ready to cook.

Note: For this recipe I skipped the pleating method for this time :-D I folded the wrapper into halves with the fillings in the middle as you can see in the picts. I learnt it from Harumi Kurihara's book - Harumi's Japanese Cooking. You can also add chopped fresh prawns into the filling which would made it tastes sweet and succulent. Sometimes I added in finely chopped Jicama or water chestnuts for extra crunch!

3. In a large non-stick frying pan over medium-heat. Put the dumplings in the pan in the pot, flat-side down, in single layer.

Cooked for 2 minutes or until bottom is crisp and golden. Combine 1/2 cup of boiling water (125 ml) with 2 teaspoon of vegetable oil and the sesame oil) then add to the pan. Cover, reduced heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes. Remove lid/pan cover, increased the heat to high and cook for about 10 minutes until the liquid has evaporated. Remove fried dumplings from the pan and drain on paper towel. Serve with the dipping sauce.

Enjoy!

Shiitake No Nimono (Shiitake Simmered in Soya Sauce)

Ok... I know I'm a bit mushroom crazy this week but I can't help to share those lovely fungi with foodie friends! When you got the chance to buy them at half-price and with extra added to the box, the temptation's to great to be missed... :-D

One of my favourite mushrooms is definitely Shiitake, either fresh or dried. It's a must-have ingredients in Asian cooking mainly in Chines

e and Japanese kitchens. You can cook them just like fresh ones and still maintained its shapes. Another good reason to have dried Shiitake at hand is to make stock with the liquid after soaking the dried mushrooms. I like to add some of it and the strained liquid as well in mushroom soup - just a bit will do to give that pungent mushroomy flavour.

A interesting remark from my Japanese friend is that they preferred dried shiitake better than fresh ones. In Japan it's very expensive compared to fresh Shiitake. Dried Shiitake has more concentrated and superior flavour. I totally agreed with them!

Have a try on dehydrated mushrooms snacks that comes in plain/natural flavour or with wasabi added. It's sooooo yummy!

Shiitake No Nimono

6-8 Large Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

375 ml Dashi II or Konbu Dashi II (recipes below)

2 Tbl Mirin

2 Tbl Sake

2 Tbl Japanese Soya Sauce

1 Tbl Dark Brown Sugar

1. Soak shiitake mushrooms in hot water for 30 minutes. Drain well. Discard the stems.

2. Combine the dashi, mirin, sake, soya sauce and sugar in a small pan over high heat. Stir the mixture until sugar has dissolved. Bring to boil.

3. Add the shiitake. Bring it to boil again and then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 1 hour or until the liquid almost evaporated.

4. Serve warm or at room temperature as side dish, part of multicourse, snack or over rice. You can use it in cawan mushi or with noodles - slice thinly or quartered.

Serves 4-6 portions.

Note: I usually reserved the liquid after soaking shiitake. You can use it for this dish to get that rich concentrated flavour which I did or add into your favourite mushroom soup recipes. Just remember to filter/sieve the liquid.

Itadikimasu!

: Making of Dashi Stocks :

For Dashi II

10 cm (4 in) square of konbu

20 g (1 cup) katsuoboshi (bonito flakes)

1. Wipe konbu with a damp cloth but don't rub off the white powdery substance that will become obvious as it dries. Cut the konbu into strips.

2. Place konbu & 1.5 L (6 cups) cold water into a saucepan and slowly bring it to boil. Quickly add 60 ml (1/4 cup) cold water to stop the boiling process. Add the bonito flakes. Allow it to boil again and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

3. Allow the bonito flakes to sink to the bottom of pan. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve. This stock is ready for stews and thick soups. 

Makes 1 L (about 4 cups)

For Konbu Dashi

15 cm (6 in) square piece of konbu

1. For Konbu Dashi I, cut konbu into strips and place them in a saucepan with 1.5 L cold water. Bring to boil, then remove the konbu.

2. For Konbu Dashi II, leave the konbu in the pan, reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes longer.

Makes about 1.5 L (5 cups)