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American Ginseng Chicken Herbal Soup ========================= This cooling soup is esp good for the warm summer! ----------------- Ingredients: ----------------- 1 Black chicken (can replace with chicken drumsticks) Red dates (Seedless) American Ginseng Roots Wolfberries (Gou Qi) Yu Zhu --------------- Instructions: --------------- Wash the chicken and blanch it with hot water to remove the blood. Put it into the slow cooker. Rinse the herbs and throw them into the slow cooker, all except wolfberries. Add hot water. Cook it with high option for 3 to 4 hours or till the meat is easily detachable from the drum or chicken. Add in wolfberries the last 30 minutes. Season it with salt or soya sauce to taste.

Ingredients: ---------------- Bamboo shoots Mushrooms Ginger Chicken (mid joint) Black fungus Few slices of danggui Shaoxing hai diao jiu Fish sauce A dash of pepper

Ingredients: ----------------- 500 gm chilli paste 250 gm shallots 2 big onions 1/2 cup cooking oil 3 Tbsp sugar 2 Tbsp gula melaka 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 piece of belachan 1/2 tbsp assam juice Method: ----------- 1. Slice shallots and big onions thinly. 2. Heat cooking oil and fry sliced shallots and big onions till fragrant. 3. Add in chilli paste and belachan and fry till thick about 1/2 hr. 4. Finally add sugar, gula melaka, assam juice and salt to taste.

Ingredients (serves 4): -------------------------- 3 tbsp canola oil 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 6 bowls cooked Japanese (short-grain) rice 1 tsp granulated chicken stock 2 tbsp light soya sauce A handful of dried nori seaweed, sliced A handful of bonito flakes Method: ----------- 1. Heat the wok until smoking hot. Add the oil and heat until it shimmers. Fry the garlic until fragrant. Then add the rice and stock powder and toss well. 2. Add the soya sauce and mix vigorously until the rice grains are coated evenly. 3. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with seaweed and bonito flakes and serve hot. Tips: --------- Freshly cooked rice becomes sticky when fried. Instead, use leftover rice or three parts uncooked rice to four parts water to cook Japanese rice for frying.

Steamed Cod Fish With Black Bean Sauce 1 medium-size cod fish (or seabass or garoupa) Sauce: 40g black bean 40g spring onions (chopped) 40g garlic (diced) 40g soya sauce 40g thick soya sauce 50g sugar 60g water 10g corn starch 10g sesame oil 10g red chilli (diced) 5g monosodium glutamate Method: Clean the cod fish and cut into pieces. Place on a plate. Mix ingredients for sauce and spread it on the fish. Steam the fish for 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Herb-Garlic Bread Ingredients: 1 French loaf 120g butter — softened 3 cloves garlic — pounded 1 tbsp chopped parsley 1/2 tsp mixed herbs 1/2 tsp ground black pepper Method: SLICE French loaf diagonally at about 1cm intervals but do not cut right through so that the loaf is still joined at the base. Combine butter and the rest of the ingredients and mix together. Spread the garlic butter on both sides of the bread slices. Wrap buttered loaf in aluminium tin foil. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C for about 10 to 15 minutes. Open the foil and heat through for another 2 to 3 minutes and you will get a crisp crust. Serve garlic bread immediately with mushroom soup or a warm stew.    

Honeydew Melon Smoothie 1 cup diced honeydew melon 250 ml/1cup cold milk (low-fat, if you prefer) 2 tbsp sugar cup ice cubes Place all ingredients in the jug of an electric blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Pour into chilled glasses and serve immediately.