Scones and Soup!

I love a hearty soup with the right breads. After a hint from a work colleague about a favourite soup being Potato & Bacon, I took a look in the cupboard and fridge on the weekend and decided that's a pretty hearty one to make.

The soup is pretty simple, follow the normal Potato & Leek (take out leek), maybe use some spring onions instead. Add a few slices of bacon with onion to fry up at Step 1 and of you go!

I had made the staple of 5 seed bread but it's really so yummy to eat by it self I didn't want to use it with soup! So I made scones! Cheeze and chive ones! Added dash of pepper and about 80 g of cheese or so.

A couple of different decent butter / dairy cheese replacement can be found at PAWS. Careful when you pick out margerines from the regular stores, a couple of the brands are actually not vegan-friendly.  

I shook out a Rochelle Adonis recipe and used the tip of flouring my "cookie cutter" before cutting my scones. The don't stick as badly and look prettier.

Before & After photos:

Absolutely delicious and quick meal on a Sunday winter's afternoon!

Before you start the soup, mix the dough for scones and set up for oven baking.

By the time the soup is done in 17 - 25 mins. You will have the scones piping hot (cooling down enough not to burn yourself). Watch out... cause I did burn my tongue on these.

I absolute adore easy meals. Feeds 4 to 6. In my family, that only went enough for 3. Too bad my stomach only allowed me to have 2 per bowl of soup! (But I managed to sneak in seconds and trick my tummy!)

Yum Cha for Dinner

I don't have to go out for yum cha now - well, maybe. There's only one restaurant that does yum cha at night in Perth: The New Moon on James Street.

I sometimes have a craving for mini siu (烧麦). I used to buy this specific brand of pre-made frozen siu mai. Basically, you snip the package corner & just microwave for 2-4 minutes. 12 instant mini siu mai as a snack! Easy much simpler than driving out for one bamboo basket of 4 pcs.

Ok not the healthiest snack: there's probably additives and very little actual meat or prawns in the pre pack.

Tuesday nights are my non-TM work night. So I cheated with what I had on hand to make this! It's not restaurant standard pretty... But I can work on that.

The Taste of Asia has the recipe p. 72. I didn't have prawns on hand, so my variation contains:

350g pork mince

4 spring onions (white & green bits all chopped finely)

1 tspn of Massels vegetable concentrate powder

1 tspn of chicken stock powder

20-30g of soy sauce

2 eggs

Wonton skins (used 1/2 a large packet)

Some Chinese cabbage (inner heart leafs roughly broken/chopped)

Method:

- you can use the TM to mix but I found it pretty easy by hand.

1. Boil 1ltr of water in TM bowl (7mins, Varoma temp, Sp3-4) cover lid w measuring cup.

2. Meanwhile, spoon mince mixture on to sheet of wonton add small pinch of leaves to cover top of siu mai. Squeeze tight flatten bottom. Place in Varoma tray/receptacle.

3. Repeat 2 until mince all used or receptacle filled.

4. Remove measuring cup.

5. Place Varoma receptacle set on TM bowl, cover with wet clean towel. (18mins, Varoma temp, Sp3). Chinese steamers always 'seal' so less steam escapes. Wonton skins are sometime dry so if not enough steam soaks in it will be chewy!

6. Sides:

I roughly chopped 1 bunch of bakchoy and added that to the bowl's remains water (3mins on 100C), removed vegetables as side dish/garnish. You can add some oyster sauce on top of the vegetables but I like the plain which went well with my siu mai.

I had the left over liquid as a clear soup :) what you might call "short soup" in restaurants. The flavor/oils from the siu mai had dripped down. If you had left over mince you could add to this with left over Chinese cabbage for a delicious 'longer soup'.

If you followed the steam rice recipe in EDC, you can definitely have this & vegetables with the rice. If this is the case and you want soup left - consider adding more water in the beginning (start with 1.5 ltr).

Tips:

1. Lightly greasy the Varoma receptacle.

2. Don't pack the siu mai too tightly!

3. If using soy sauce either use only the chicken stock or Massel. Both I found to be too salty to eat without rice or soup.