My Cooking Journal 23 - Spinach Soup with Meat Ball and Silver Fish

One afternoon, I was at an eating house along Joo Chiat Road enjoying their famous delicacy that is the curry fish head with two others dishes to accomplish a satisfying lunch. One of the side dish that we ordered was this spinach soup with silver fish. I really fell in love with this spinach soup because of its refreshing and flavourful taste. It is a simple soup comprises of spinach, silver fish, mince pork and some shallots to enhance the flavour of the soup. I think it would be easy to cook and decided to copy their version using my own cooking instinct.

 

Well, the result was satisfying and I started to cook this soup for my family occasionally. It is a simple, hearty and nutritious soup embrace with high volume of calcium as I used ingredients like ikan bilis, spinach and silver fish which contain significant amount of calcium for our body. You may refer to My Cooking Journal 9 to find out more on the benefits of spinach and I hope you will enjoy this soup as much as I do.   

My Ingredients:

1.      1 pack (200g) Spinach – Wash and trim (Refer to my Cooking Journal 9 for preparing spinach)

2.      200g Ikan Bilis - (Stock) Wash and rinse

3.      100g to 200g minced pork – Rinse, marinate and roll into balls

4.      50g – Dry Silver fish - Rinse

5.      3 slices Ginger

6.      2 - 3 cloves Garlic – Deskin and cut into slice

7.      3 cloves shallot – Deskin and cut into slice

8.      1 teaspoon sesame oil – for marinate

9.      1 teaspoon fish sauce  - for marinate

10.  Pinch of corn flour – for marinate

11.  pinch of pepper, salt and sugar – for marinate and to taste 

12.  1 tablespoon olive oil

13.  1.6 litre Water (enough to serve 2-3 person)

14.  Fried shallot and diced spring onions (for garnish)

Method:

1.      Rinse, marinate the minced pork with fish sauce, sesame oil, corn flour, sugar and pepper (quantity as stated above) in a bowl. Then roll and shape the minced pork into small round individual meat ball. Set aside.

2.   Prepare a pot of boiling water for making ikan bilis soup base. Add in washed ikan bilis and simmer for 30 minutes in low fire. Remove and discard the ikan bilis in the pot. Set aside.

3.   Heat up another pot for soup. Once heated, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, let oil heat up, then add ginger and stir fry till fragrance, then add sliced garlic and shallots. Also, stir fry till they become fragrance and lightly brown.

4.   Pour in the ikan bilis soup base. Let it simmer till the soup boils.

5.   Add in the spinach stem and washed silver fish first. Let it simmer for about 20 minutes.

6.   Add in the meat ball. Once the meat ball float, add in spinach leaves and let it cook till they boil. Off fire.

7.   Add salt to taste and serve in a bowl. Garnish with fried shallot, pepper and dash of sesame oil.

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