Tom Yam Braised Chicken

Before we had our Korean craze, we were so in love with Tom Yum. Tom Yum soup, Tom Yum steamboat, Tom Yum fried rice, etc. I looove Tom Yum! So instead of the usual Tom Yum Soup, I'm going to cook something a little different. Tom Yum braised Chicken!

Head to any major supermarket and you should be able to find a jar of Tom Yum paste. It consist of all the spices you need to make the soup. 

Yes, I guess you can call this a cheat dish. But in order to keep it wholesome, you can start reading the ingredients list on the food packaging. Choose the one that has the least amount of ingredients that you don't recognise. XD

Point to take note will be, the paste is usually very concentrated. I only needed 1 teaspoon to make 1 dish. But different brands have different flavours and seasoning. So always taste your food and adjust the according to your taste.

My original recipe is much more simpler, which consist of only the chicken and the sauce. But I realised that if you add in a few selected vegetables, it makes a whole lot of difference! Best thing is that it is so quick and easy to make. The spicy and sour flavours will make you salivate! Another bowl of rice for me please!

6 pieces of chicken wings with drumlets

1 onion

1 tablespoon light soya sauce

1 teaspoon instant tom yum paste

1 teaspoon instant tom yum paste oil

1 stalk lemongrass (smacked and cut into sections)

1 teaspoon sugar

200g abalone mushrooms (can use straw mushrooms)

1 tomato

1. Separate the chicken wings with the drumlets and blanch them in boiling water for a few seconds. Drain and set aside. 
2. With a little oil, stir fry the chicken parts with soya sauce until the skin is a little brown. 
3. Add tom yum paste and the oil inside the paste, if available. Add in sugar and the lemongrass and stir fry until everything is mixed well. 
4. Add in the mushrooms and give it a good toss. 
5. Add just enough water to reach halfway of the food in the frying pan. Cover up and let it cook in high heat for about 10minutes, or until the liquid has been reduced by half. Cooking in high heat releases the gelatin in the chickenskin, making the sauce thick and sticky. 
6. Check seasoning. 
7. Add in a sliced and de-seeded tomato. Give it a few toss only before serving.

Pressure Cooker Red Bean Soup

Red Bean Soup!

If you are not Asian you probably think this dish sounds kindda gross. But this is actually a dessert. A sweet porridge-like dessert made from red beans. They do sell this at food courts, but they are usually very stingy with the beans, so with every scoop, there's only a few beans floating around in the sweet soup. So sad.. When you make this at home, you can have a whole spoon of beans with every bite!

Shiok!!

Plus, do you know they are super good for you? Red beans are packed with protein, vitamins and minerals. Dessert that is actaully good for you!

The traditional way of cooking it is quite straight forward. Just put the beans in water and boil. But like all dried beans, it takes FOREVER to cook, and boiling over is unavoidable and messy. Not forgetting constantly checking it to make sure the water didn't dry up or burnt at the bottom of the pot! With the pressure cooker, all I had to do was to put everything into the pot, press 2 buttons and wait. Clean and simple!

In fact, this dish is so easy to make, I decided to just let the 2 babies do it for me. All they have to do is to follow the recipe I wrote down. Turned out that making the dish wasn't the difficult part. I forgot that my 2 babies HAD to fight about EVERYTHING. There was so much shouting, including myself, that I had to edit out the noise.. 😅

Sibling rivalry aside, the red bean soup was delicious. But when I gave it to Hubby, he ate it quietly and said, "I prefer green bean soup.."

😑

So I made green bean soup by myself the next day, and I literally only took less than 5 minutes before pressing the START button. Haha... everything really IS more difficult when the kids are around!

The green bean soup was also just as good. The beans were intact but soft and cooked. The dish was sweet and satisfying~!

You can enjoy the dessert :

• Warm
• Chilled
• Blended
• even as a side with ice cream!

OK, will stop talking now and give you the recipe.

RED / GREEN BEAN SOUP
makes 3 generous bowls

1/2 cup dried red/green beans
2 tablespoons glutinous rice **
1 stick of 片糖 (70g Chinese brown sugar)
2 pcs of Pandan leaves (tied into a knot)
2.5 cups of water

** Optional: Adding glutinous rice makes the dessert more sticky and thick.

1. Wash the beans and rice with water and drain well. 
2. Add all ingredients into the pressure cooker pot. Close the cover, make sure the pressure seal is closed. 
3. Choose 'BEAN' mode and press 'START'. Let the pressure cooker cook (30 minutes) and allow it to naturally release it's pressure by itself. (about 20-30mins) 
4. Adjust the thickness of the soup and sweetness according to your own preference. E.g. If you want it thinner, add water and bring it to a boil before serving.
5. Serve as is or with a drizzle of coconut cream.