Malaysian Pan Mee 板麵 Pan Mien

Pan Mee, a type of flat noodles served in soup or dry (kon lou) is originated from Malaysia.  It is a Malaysian Chinese cuisine.

The dough is made of flour, water and salt, sometimes with egg added can be torn or pinch into small flat pieces, rolled with a rolling pin and cut with a knife or cut with a machine into flat stripe noodles. I am making the pinch pan mee for this recipe.

Pan mee is typically served with with fried anchovies, mushroom, minced pork and a green vegetable called sayur manis or sauropus androgynus.

Making the noodles and preparing the garnishes require quite a period of time.  I had to spend about two hours or more.  Especially when I would normally mince the pork myself instead of buying it from the store to reduce fat intake.  But in the end, the result of a hot, yummy bowl of pan mee just like one from a kopitiam worth it all!

Ingredients:  Serves 4

For the noodles:
2 cups AP flour
1 large egg
1/2 to 3/4 cup water
pinch of salt

For the minced pork:
(A)
100g minced pork
1 tsp Shao Hsing wine
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
pinch of salt
pinch of white pepper
(B)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
oil for frying
water if necessary

Soup:
3L of pork broth
3 pieces of dry small fish (as shown on pic),
a big hand's full of ikan bilis (anchovies)
salt to taste
white pepper to taste
some soy sauce (optional)
3 big hand's full of sayur manis leaves
12 fish balls, halved
12 pork meat balls, halved

Garnish:
60g ikan bilis
8 pieces of cloud ear, soaked in water to soften
oil to fry the ikan bilis

Dried fish and anchovies for the soup.

Ingredients

Garnishes

Pinch pan mee

Method:

1.  Prepare the soup.  In a large pot, boil the dried fish and dried anchovies.  Let it cook while we prepare the rest of ingredients.

2.  Make the noodles.  Add in flour and salt in a mixing bowl, make a well in the middle and add in the egg.  Start mixing it using the hand.  Add in water slowly and mixing it constantly with the hand until it form a dough.  Knead the dough for a good few minutes then shape it into a ball and place it in the same mixing bowl cover with a wet kitchen cloth to rest for 20 minutes.

3.  Mix all the A ingredients for minced meat together.  Set aside.

4.  Fry the anchovies.  In a small pot, pour enough oil to deep fry the anchovies for about 1 to 2 minutes or when they turned brown and crispy.  Dish out and set aside.

5.  Add the cloud ear into the soup and let it cook for about 3 minutes.  Dish out and let it cool.  Cut them into thin stripes and set aside.

6.  Prepare the minced pork.  In a pan with high heat, add in oil.  Add the minced garlic and shallot and stir fry until aromatic and light brown.  Add in the minced pork mixture and stir fry for 1 1/2 minutes or until cooked.  Add water if it's too dry.  Dish out and set aside.

7 .  In another large pot, add in enough water to cook the noodles.  Boil the water.  You will notice the noodle dough is softer after the 20 minutes rest.  Give it a little knead and the dough is ready to cook when the water is boiling.  To make pinch pan mee, simply just pinch about 1 1/2 inches of a flat dough (as flat as possible) and just dump it into the boiling water.  Repeating pinching the dough until it's all used up.

8.  While the noodles is cooking, its time to finish up cooking the soup.  Turn the heat to high and add in fish balls, pork meat balls.  When the fish balls expand, add in the sayur manis.  Season the soup with salt, white pepper and soy sauce.  Cover and turn the heat off.

9.  Dish out the desire portion of the pan mee into serving bowls.  Add some soup, fish balls and pork meat balls into each bowl.  Garnish with the minced pork, cloud ear stripes and ikan bilis.  Serve immidiately with your favourite chili sambal or sliced chili padi with soy sauce!

Potato and Broccoli Soup

This potato and broccoli soup recipe was given by a dear friend I met in Bucharest, Romania.  This is a hearty soup with potatoes, broccoli, onion and garlic.  I like to add some ginger in this soup during the winter.  The ginger would help keep one warm.

Ingredients:

200g potatoes, sliced

100g broccoli, chopped

1 medium brown onion, sliced

400ml vegetables stock or water

2 gloves garlic, sliced

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

some cream

some chives

Serves 2

Method:

1.  In a medium pot, heat the oil over medium heat.  Stir fry the onion, potatoes, garlic and broccoli together for 2 - 3 minutes until soft.

2.  Add in the vegetables stock/water and bring it to a boil, turn the heat to low and simmer for 10 - 12 minutes with the lid cover.

3.  Remove from heat and blend with a hand held blender or a food processor.  Blend until smooth.  Bring it back to the pot(if you are using a food processor) and season with salt and pepper to taste.  The soup is done when heat through.  (You can add some water if the soup is too thick)

4.  Scoop the soup into two serving bowls.  Add some cream and sprinkle some chives on top.  Serve hot with some crispy baguettes.

Creamy White Asparagus Soup / Deutscher Spargelsuppe

Germany produces a lot of white asparagus.  Both green and white asparagus are actually the same.  It is just that the white ones are not exposed to sunlight.  This spring vegetable must be peel before cooking or raw consumption.  It is low in calories, with good source of folate, potassium, and its stalks are high in antioxidants.  I would prefer to use the white asparagus for soup and the green ones for roasting, stir-fry and and side.

Ingredient:

800g white asparagus

400ml chicken/vegetables stock or water

1 potato, peeled and finely diced

2 gloves garlic, chopped

1 onion, thinly sliced

20g butter

1 bay leaf

2 tbsp heavy cream

pinch of ground cumin

Salt and white pepper, to taste

Spring onion, to serve

Serves 4

Method:

1.  Peeled the asparagus.  cut into 2cm pieces.

2.  In a pot over medium heat, heat the butter.  Stir in onion, bay leaf and garlic and cook until aromatic.  Add in the chopped asparagus, potato and cook for about 10 minutes. 

3.  Take out all the asparagus tips and set them aside.  Pour in the stock, add the ground cumin and continue to cook over low heat for another 20 minutes until the potato and asparagus are tender.

4.  Remove the bay leaf, blend the asparagus and potato until smooth.  Return soup to the pot.  Stir in the heavy cream, add salt and pepper to taste.

5.  Serve the soup with the reserved asparagus tips and sprinkle with spring onion.  Enjoy!

Carrot Cream Soup

A simple, weekend healthy soup with ground coriander and ginger.  Serve with your favourite bread, this can be a great starter or a warming supper!


























Ingredients:
250g carrot
1 onion
2 1/2 cups chicken stock / water
30g butter
1/2 cup cream
1/2 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground ginger
salt and pepper to taste
Serves 2 - 3

Method:
1.  Peel carrots, cut them with onion into thin slices.  Heat butter in a soup pot, add onion and carrot.  Stir over low heat until onion is tender.

2.  Add flour, ground ginger, ground coriander and stir until well combine.  Add chicken stock, stir and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes or until the carrot is tender.

3.  Remove from heat, with a hand held blender, blend until smooth.  Alternatively, blend in a food blender.  Return to heat and add in the cream and season with salt and pepper, stir until heated through.  SServe the soup with some cream.

Thai Tom Kha Gai / Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

I managed to make a trip to the Asian shop yesterday.  My freezer is now full of galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and Thai chili. It's handy to have them in stored, so that I can make this tom kha gai or tom yam goong whenever I want.   

Galangal is from the ginger family, but its taste and flavour are very unique and different from ginger.  Some recipes suggest substitute galangal with ginger, but I think the soup would turn out completely different.  After all, the name kha in Thai means galangal, and that's one of the key ingredients of this soup.  If you wish, you can add some sliced mushroom, or bamboo shoot.  But for this recipe, I'm making it with just plain chicken.

For those who have yet to try this soup, hmmm.... what can I say?  Schade!  Which means 'too bad', 'what a pity' in German.  Try it, and you'll know what I mean....

Ingredients:

1 can 400ml coconut milk

200ml chicken broth

6 slices galangal

2 stalks lemongrass

5 fresh kaffir lime leaves

250g chicken breast, sliced

3 tbsp fish sauce, or more, to taste

2 tbsp sugar, palm sugar if possible

1 tsp black chili paste, or chili oil

50ml fresh lime juice, squeezed from 2 limes

1/4 cup cilantro/coriander leaves, torn

2 Thai chili, crushed

Serves 2

To prepare:

1.  To bring out the flavour, tear the kaffir lime leaves as if you are angry at them. ;-)    Use only the white part of the lemongrass, cut into 1 inch pieces and crush them using the back of a knife.

2.  In a pot, pour in half of the coconut milk, all of chicken broth and cook with galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves to boiling.  cook for about a minute.

3.  Add the chicken, fish sauce and sugar.  Simmer for about 4 minutes.

4.  Add in the remaining coconut milk and heat just to boiling.  Turn off the heat, add in lime juice and chili paste or chili oil.  Garnish with cilantro leaves and crushed chili.

5.  This recipe serve 2, as appetizer or with plain rice.