I have tried for years to find a congee recipe I actually like - as opposed to endure - and had given up until recently when I decided to give savoury rice porridge for breakfast once more try. Southeast Asia is home to some of my favourite cuisines as well as a large southern Chinese diaspora, so I decided to take a look at Thai and Vietnamese recipes for congee and use them as a springboard. (Hungry Huy's recipe and Thai Awesome's recipe were particularly helpful.)
A nice hot bowl of wonton soup makes for a lovely, easy, light breakfast (or dinner!) and as a result is a staple in my family. This recipe is our own and vaguely Chinese, but perhaps not classically so as it's just what suits our preferences and tastes. We're usually cooking for two, so adjust the amounts accordingly as needed, and enjoy!
This is a variation on another old Cantonese favorite, in this incarnation an adaptation of Meet the Chows' straightforward recipe. It's great as part of a set of dishes, a starter, or even on its own when you're short on time and not too crazy hungry. (A scoop of rice would no doubt help in that last scenario!) It's simple yet very moreish at the same time. Enjoy!
This is a recipe that looks daunting at first glance, but is actually quite easy and straightforward. It might require some shopping if you don't have the basics of a Chinese pantry, but most of those "unusual" ingredients get used quite a bit in other Chinese dishes. (When my husband and I got into cooking more of his food after we left China we used to joke that everything used the same four or five ingredients, just in differing amounts - it's funny 'cause it's kinda true!) I've used the wonderful recipe at the Woks of Life as a base, but adapted it somewhat to my family's tastes. Definitely go to the source if you're wanting to work with a more authentic recipe!
It's been a chilly, rainy spring so far this year and I've consequently been into all things soup. More recently I found myself craving the delicious lentil soup served at an Aleppan cafe in one of my old neighborhoods, but beefed up a bit to work better as a proper lunch or dinner on its own. This Palestinian version of the same soup (شوربة عدس) did not disappoint!
This is a "hamburger" soup in the sense that it uses ground beef as its protein, not in the sense that it tastes like a burger! What follows is largely Spend with Pennies' great recipe, but somewhat modified to better fit my family's preferences and make it a proper soup. (It was somewhat stew-esque as originally conceived.)
Green borscht is a much less well known part of the borscht family, one I've long wanted to give a try! I wasn't able to source all the authentic ingredients where I live, so I've written my recipe with the necessary substitutes. If you want to check out original recipes from actual Ukrainian cooks (Ukraine is the home of borscht after all!), then check out Nataliia or Iryna's great recipes!
I love an easy meal, and I love a beautiful broth on a cool fall day. This adaptation of Hank Shaw's great original recipe is certainly both! I enjoy it as is, but as always make it your own!
I'm in one of those seasons in life I sometimes think of as a 'Get Out, Right Now' season. (Thanks JoJo, twenty years later and your song's still stuck in my head!) Right now this primarily concerns our pantry, which I usually like to keep well stocked, but which now needs to be liquidated or given away in the next month. During today's perusal of the shelf survivors my gaze fell upon a can of black beans trying to hide off in a corner, and after watching a few videos on Instagram, the following recipe is what resulted!
Many of my early dates with my spouse involved Singaporean-style curry laksa, so this dish - although not quite the same - holds a special place in our hearts. I have combined Woks of Life's lovely laksa recipe with Marion's more Thai-oriented version as I like to multipurpose ingredients rather than having twenty jars of different curry pastes on hand. I've also done some simplifying to reflect the other ingredients we generally have on hand in our currently North American-based pantry. Laksa is an amazingly delicious dish, so whether you try my adaptation below or the original recipes, you must give one of them a try, you won't regret it!
This recipe is a bit 'northeastern China meets Southeast Asia,' but I'm so glad the two did meet, 'cause the results are delicious! I used Jeeca's lovely recipe as a base, but obviously made a few changes to bring forward some Thai and Chinese elements. Recipes are only ever guides, not laws, so feel free to play with mine as well if you like!
First off the bat, no, this recipe is not trying to reignite the chicken or the egg debate, it just shows my pasta of choice in its name! It's just started snowing again here in Saskatchewan - a month after our first snowfall! - and so naturally my favorite fall soup came to mind! I wasn't feeling the version with rice I often make though, so this is my attempt at a chicken noodle soup. I hope you like it as much as I do!
This is another blend of a couple of recipes, from here and here. Ham seems to be a popular add-in to split pea soup in North America, but more often than not I make it as below for days when I'm vegan. I think this recipe is delicious as is, but feel free to add some ham or bacon if you're wanting that richer flavor in the end product!
Borscht is a nostalgic dish for me, something that always brings back memories of days spent at my godmother's house, where there would often be a giant pot of borscht bubbling away on the stove. She was from an area in southern Russia very close to what today is southeastern Ukraine, so her borscht was a bit different from what's more often considered standard by Russians and Westerners alike.
This creamy dill pickle soup is an old Polish favorite from this wonderful blog that I've long enjoyed, especially in the wintertime. I've made minor modifications based on my own preferences, so feel free to adapt from here or follow the link to give the original a try!
In my family it's a tradition to have pumpkin soup on New Year's in honor of Haitian Independence Day. Due to my limited access to certain ingredients over the years I've played around with my recipe quite a bit. What follows is my favorite experiment so far (a slight adaptation of this recipe), and possibly my recipe from here onwards despite its distance from more traditional Haitian recipes. I hope you like it as much as I do!
Chicken soup has long been a favorite fall and winter go-to, and with all the health issues facing us this year and no doubt next I decided to up the garlic content of this cold weather staple! If you don't like garlic...well, this isn't the cooking blog for you! Given the health benefits of garlic, I'd suggest sticking to the recipe, but to each their own!
This recipe is a shameless americanization of this lovely recipe for Shanghainese tomato egg drop soup. I love tomato soup, I love egg drop soup, and I am lazy, so when I came across the recipe above I realized I could do great things with just a can of condensed tomato soup! The results are below - enjoy!
