Weekend Cooking - Vegetable Soups - Chinese

On the cooking spree this weekend as I mentioned in my previous post What did you do this weekend? , I cooked three different varieties of soups since my daughter had a craving for soups. She ate just soup for lunch and dinner on Saturday... She was not in best of health so I did not really nag her to eat some carbs as well. She enjoyed it a lot so did both us.

Heat some oil in a wok. Fry the garlic until it starts to leave an aroma but before it burns. Add the onion and fry for another minute. Pour the stock, sauces and pepper and bring to a boil. Add the vegetables and salt and boil for 2 minutes or longer until the vegetables have cooked but still crisp. Now add the cornflour paste and allow it to thicken. Add the pak choy, spring onion tomato, basil and paneer to the soup, top with chilli oil and serve piping hot.

Tip : Heat a large pot of water to boil. Blanch the vegetable in the boiling water. Use the same water it to make the remaining stock.

Boil a large pot water sufficient to cover the vegetables. Measurements are something I don't bother with stock. I added the following vegetables - carrots, 4-5 french beans, cauliflower, cabbage, a small piece of red pumpkin, a small slice of beet, an onion, a celery stick, garlic, ginger, half sweet corn on the cob, peas, a small potato. The left over vegetables from the stock were used to make a delicious pav bhaji. I used to feel really guilty wasting the vegetables.

Here is another soup that I made. Rather bland without many vegetables but yeah chilli garlic is the star ingredient in this too.

Just to ensure that I have the ingredients too here they are

Vegetable Chill garlic Soup with corn kernels

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups stock
1/2 tsp pepper
1 1/2 tsp chilli garlic (to be adjust acc to taste)
1 tsp vinegar
salt to taste
1/2 cup sweet corn kernels
1/4 cup chopped sring onion white
4-5 garlic chopped fine
3 heaped tsp corn flour mixed with a little water

To added just before the final boil
1/4 cup chopped spring onion green
1/4 cup chopped pak choy
1 tsp chilli oil

The final soup which turned out spicy but sadly I have no picture. I forgot to take a picture :-(

Vegetable Soup with green chilli sauce

Ingredients

1 cup Vegetables finely chopped (zucchini, carrots, pak choy, red, green, yellow pepper, French beans)
¼ cup paneer sliced thin and long
½ cup sweet corn
2 spring onion sliced with the greens chopped and separated
3-4 garlic chopped fine
1? ginger chopped fine
1 tsp soya sauce
2 tsp chilli vinegar
1 tsp green chilli sauce ( if you like it spicier add 1 more tsp)
A pinch of sugar
½ tsp pepper powder
4 cups stock
1 tbsp finely chopped celery
3 heaped tsp of cornflour mixed with water
2 leaves pak choy chopped

The French beans and the sweet corn need to be added when the stock is put to boil. The rest of the vegetables can go when you do the final boil so that the crispiness is retained.

I never used to cook soups found them too much of a bother and the wastage of vegetable used to trouble me too. Now I think I will keep making soups!!

This recipe is for Weekend Wokking hosted by Yasmeen Health Nut.