Simple Home Cook ABC Soup and Tom Yam Soup

ABC Soup

More often than not, and on a normal day, we would settle for just simple cuisines at home. Like a bowl of soup, a piece of fried fish or a vegetable omelette. Here is what I am going to do today, I am going to introduce some really simple home cook cuisines.

The simplest among all would be the ABC Soup which has cabbage, strips of carrots, onions, potatoes and fish balls. At home, we call this the ABC Soup. I don't exactly know where or why the soup is name such but we have been calling it ABC Soup from one generation to the next. I guess, the name of the cuisine came around because of the simplicity of it. Chicken bones are used to prepare the broth. The chicken bones are boiled in a pot of water for about an hour on slow heat. The rest of the components are added into the soup only when the soup is about to be served. Then add salt for taste and pepper for flavour. The rest of the components are just simply added into the soup base after that.

Tom Yam Soup

Another easy to prepare home cook soup cuisine is the tom yam soup. Just like the ABC Soup, the tom yam soup starts with the broth too. Usually, we would use tom yam paste that can be bought from the Asian grocery store.

In a pot of water, add about three spoons of the tom yam paste and wait until boil. If the broth does not bring out the tom yam aroma when boiling, add more of the paste. Sometimes, I throw in a stalk or two of lemon grass and lime leaves into the broth to enhance flavour and aroma. Once the broth is ready and taste just right, add the components, such as cabbage, onions, tofu, fish fillet, squid, shrimps and enoki mushrooms.