So many ingredients you can’t see the thick bee hoon below!

This noodle soup recipe is what I fall back on when I need a meal that would go down well with someone who’s ill… or if you’re feeling a bit health-conscious…

A few days ago, I developed a sore throat but it went away, only to return with a vengeance this morning. Last night I also started to cough a little. There went my plans to cook laksa today (I always cook laksa using the Prima mix – it’s really nice I tell ya). I had already bought the ingredients earlier on but my throat infection meant that laksa was definitely out of the question. Instead of letting the innocent packet of thick bee hoon and beansprouts go to waste, I decided to cook a soupy meal. Fortunately I wasn’t feeling too ill to get out of bed to cook dinner…

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of thick bee hoon (serves 2) – or you can use other types of noodles (usually I use other types of noodles like ee fu noodles, vermicelli, or egg noodles)
• 4-5 handfuls of beansprouts, plucked (you can cut down on this – I bought a whole pack so I decided to use it all)
• 4 crabsticks – remove the plastic covering and cut each crabstick into half
• 1 packet of fishballs
• a couple yong tau foo items (depends on your preference)
• fish sauce/salt to taste
• ground white pepper
• spring onions (washed and cut into 1cm length pieces)

Soup base:

• 3 chicken breast bones
• $2-3 worth of pork ribs
• 1 big dried scallop (rinse, place in small soup bag)
• a handful of ikan bilis (washed a few times)
• a few cloves of garlic (rinse)
• a soup pot of water (3-4 L)

Method:

1. Clean the chicken breast bones and pork ribs, removing any visible fats.
2. Blanch the bones and ribs.
3. Place all the ingredients for the soup base in a soup pot or claypot. Bring to a boil then simmer for a few hours (I think I simmered it for about 4hrs today).
4. Sieve the bones and ikan bilis out of the soup and place the pork ribs (if desired) and the dried scallop (remove from soup bag) back into the soup. Set aside.
5. Steam the yong tau foo items (I do this for hygiene reasons). Set aside.
6. Bring a pot of water to boil and place the thick bee hoon into the boiling water.
7. Remove the thick bee hoon from the water and portion into serving bowls.
8. Add the beansprouts to the boiling water. Let it boil for awhile till it’s cooked but yet still very crunchy. Remove from water and place in the serving bowls.
9. While cooking the bee hoon and beansprouts, bring the soup base to a boil.
10. Add the fishballs first and let them boil for awhile.
11. Add the yong tau foo items and add the crab sticks last as they cook very quickly. (The fishballs should be floating by now – which means they’re cooked)
12. Season the soup with fish sauce and pepper.
13. Dish the fishballs, crabsticks, yong tau foo items, pork ribs and dried scallop into serving bowls and pour the soup into the bowls.
14. Garnish with spring onions.

Cooking notes:

You can substitute the yong tau foo or supplement the dish with minced pork balls (season the minced pork with black pepper, oyster sauce, garlic powder, sesame oil and shape into little balls) or chicken fillet cubes.
I told my hubby that if there’s a dish he’s gotta learn to cook, it’s gotta be this one…. so he can cook for me when I’m ill!! 🙂