Salted Vegetables Duck Soup (Kiam Chai Ark) 咸菜鸭汤

Chinese New Year Dishes – Part 3（年菜之三）

This Nyonya dish is one of the must in traditional Teow Chew or Hokkien speaking families in the South East Asia during Chinese New Year celebration.

When Auntie Lan was staying with us, I requested her to teach me this grandma recipe. I bought quite a big duck (size 19) for the soup; we ended up using half of the duck only. I still have another half in my freezer that I'm planning to cook this coming Chap Goh Mei (15^th day of Lunar New Year) 元宵。

Chinese believe salted mustard green is great in clearing away internal body heat. This soup with salty and sour taste is a great appetizer too. A bowl of the soup instantly opens up one's appetite especially in the hot summer weather.

Salted Vegetables Duck Soup (Kiam Chai Ark) 咸菜鸭汤

咸菜鸭汤是娘惹菜系中的名汤也是潮洲和闵南人新年过节的必备之汤。它的味道咸中带酸，有清热去火之功效，天气热没胃口，一碗下肚马上胃口大开！

Teochew Loh Ack (Braised Duck) 潮州卤鸭 - Featured in Group Recipes

Teochew Cuisine

With Ray’s auntie, our ex-home chef, staying with us for the next 2 months, I am taking this opportunity to hand over my kitchen duty to her since we miss her cooking so much.  With her running my kitchen and being my guest chef, I bet I’d get to learn more home cooking and have more recipes to share in this blog especially hubby’s family Teochew cuisine and authentic Nyonya dishes which she specializes in. I’m so pleased to step down from my position and pass my chef cap to her. :-P

With a master chef brought in all the way from Penang, I proudly invited my Penang group of friends in Auckland who were craving for Penang food to come over for a real Penang home cooked meals.  It was such a divine feast; the dishes served were so homely and authentic which we all missed so much.  Shared below are the main course and side dish we had for the night.  If you think they look tempting, wait till you have tasted them J

Teochew Braised Duck 潮州卤鸭 - Featured in Group Recieps 24/11/2010

I want that drumstick!

Braised eggs and bean curds

 

As some of us may have noticed, most experienced cooks don’t usually measure the cooking ingredients with a scale, spoon or other measuring gadgets.  Though it may not appear that they are measuring but they actually are. They measure by a combination of their eyes and experience. When I asked her how much to use she had difficulty to spell out as precisely.  In order to transcribe this recipe, I had to ask her to measure every single ingredient she added.  However, most of the time I was not fast enough to measure them before she added the ingredients in L

Hence, I can only try my best to estimate the quantity of seasoning.  However she said the amount used is based on taste which is really the essence of measuring. I hope my effort in recording this recipe does not contribute to another item in your kitchen trash bin.