Red Bean Barley with lily bulbs

I was thinking of cooking curry and bought all the ingredients. But coming home to a husband who told me his tummy was unwell. I told myself it has to be the medication the doctor prescribe to him that is causing the discomfort. This cervical spondylosis is causing him so much numbness and pain. Now the stomach! 

To worsen matter, he isn't sleeping well at night. Not sure if this constitute to his weak stomach. 

So I decided to brew something nutritious and easy to eat. I came up with Red Bean + Barley + Lily Bulbs.
It is easy to prepare. All you need are
Ingredients

1 cup of red beans
1 cup of pearl barley

A handful of lily bulbs

Honey rock sugar to your liking

3/4 pot full of water

Note: you can adjust the amount of red beans and pearl barley to use. 

Direction

1. Rinse the red beans & barley separately. Pick those bad beans and barley out. Place them in a pot. 

2. Fill the pot with 3/4 full water. Brew the red beans and barley on medium heat. 

3. Rinse the lily bulbs and soak them in a bowl of water. Set aside.

4. Once the water is boiling, lower the heat and add in the rock honey sugar. *depends on your taste level for sweetness. Adjust accordingly.

Brew on low heat for half an hour.

5. Discard the bowl of water and add in the lily bulbs. Continue to let the soup brew till your liking. 

*If u like the beans to be mushy, brew it for an hour. 

Here you have it, a bowl of sweet nutritious soup that my husband eats for his lunch and tea break yesterday. It can fill the stomach and warms it. Give it a try the next time you are feeling under the weather.

Old Cucumber Soup 老黄瓜汤

The weather in Singapore is so crazily hot and I guess to brew a pot of soup to cool the body heat. 

It's a brownish colour wrinkled cucumber. It is known to help regulate the inner body temperature. And some believe it has anti-aging agent! 

So let's brew Old Cucumber Soup 老黄瓜汤. 

Note: Most people add dried cuttlefish or dried oyster to sweeten the soup but I didn't add them mainly because I was unable to get it. So I increase the amount of pork bones, dried scallops and hours of simmer, the soup is still very flavourful.

For those who likes some vegetables, you may add in chopped carrots or sweet corns.

Serves 4

Cook time at least 2 hours

Ingredients

- 1 old cucumber

- 2 litre of water

- 8 red dates

- 10 conpoy/dried scallops

- 500g pork soft bones

- 3 skinless chicken thighs

- salt to taste

Directions 

- Scrub the skin of the old cucumber clean and cut it in half. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and wash it clean. Cut it into wedges.

- In a small pot, parboil them. Rinse and set aside. 

- Remove the skin and excess fats of the chicken thighs. Rinse and set aside.

- Place the old cucumber wedges, red dates, conpoy, blanched pork soft bones in a 2 litre pot of water. 

- Bring it to a boil, lower the heat and add in the skinless chicken thighs. 

- Simmer the soup over low heat for 2 hours.

- Season it with salt to taste, if necessary.

- Serve hot.

Snow Pear with Snow Fungus Soup (雪梨雪耳汤)

This is my first time brewing this soup and being a lazy me, I prepped everything and put them in a slow cooker to brew. I left it to cook in a slow cooker for almost 12 hours. 

Reason being it was my first time preparing a luncheon for 14 pax and I kinda freak out. So one dish down using the slow cooker. =p

Ingredients

• 4 chinese white pears
• 3 candied dates 
• a handful of snow fungus
• 3 tbsp of small chinese almonds (南北杏)
• 800g of pork big bones
• 3.6 litre of water
• salt to taste

Directions

1. Wash and parboil the pork big bones. Set aside.
2. Soak the white fungus in a bowl of water for 15 minutes. 
3. Place the big bones and the rest of the ingredients (except salt) into the slow cooker.
4. Fill it with 3 litre of water.
   
5. Use auto-shift mode to cook the soup. *I brew it for more than 12 hours. 
6. When ready, add salt to taste. 

Note: 

1. If you prefer a more savoury soup, reduce the chinese white pears & candied dates. 
2. If you want to have meat in this soup, you can either change the pork big bones to pork ribs or add pork ribs and reduce the big bones.