How to: Basic Dashi Stock & Simple noodles

During this long Malaysia Day weekend, I have had a calorie binge. So it was definitely back to healthy options today. Knowing that I had a long work-week ahead, I decided to prepare a batch of Dashi stock (Japanese seaweed stock), that I could freeze and reuse in the dishes during the week. This stock is super simple to make, has almost no calories and best of all, is super tasty. Here's what you'll need.

Dashi Stock

Step 1: The ingredients.
2.5 litres of water
2 pieces of Kombu or kelp
A fistful of bonito flakes

Step 2: Put them all in a pot and boil

Set the flames to high until the water starts boiling. After that switch to a smaller flame and let it slowly simmer for 30 minutes or until the aroma starts wafting from the pot.

Step 3: Remove from flame and strain
After straining, leave until completely cooled before transfering to a covered container to be frozen for future use.

Simple rice noodles in dashi broth
Step 1: Put 4 to 5 ladels of broth in the pot (Depends on how much broth you prefer)
Put in rice noodles (Or your preferred noodle choice)

 

Step 2: When noodles are soft, add 1 tbsp mirin (Japanese glutinous rice wine)

 Step 3: Add 1tbsp Goma shabu (Sesame sauce for shabu shabu)

Step 4: Soy sauce to taste

Step 5: Crack an egg and add dried seaweed in a bowl. Pour hot noodle soup on top of egg and seaweed. (I prefer my eggs a little undercooked but if you're worried about eating partially raw eggs you can cook them in the pot first)

Step 6: Eat

Total calories for Soup Noodles - 320 calories (mainly from rice noodles)

There are a tonne of things that you can do with Dashi broth. For example, it can be used as a base for a hot pot, to sweeten sauces for tofu dishes or as the basic in stews. If you're the type that has a busy lifestyle to maintain, this is definitely one to keep in stock.

Oh So Yummy Bak Kut Teh... But is it healthy?

You never really think about what goes into Bak Kut Teh. Especially not when the fragrant soup puts most people into a trance. Spoonful after spoonful of that delicious herbal broth goes down your throat and for the fatty pork lover, its a heavenly combination of flavours. For some, its the best way to mask that rather unpleasant odour of pork innards that you would otherwise not eat. But here's the real debate, can such a fatty dish be healthy?

Some sources say that Bak Kut Teh's herbal qualities can neutralize the fat contained in pork belly meat and that it was a herbal concoction created to boost health. But I'm rather skeptical that a dish of such high calorie content can be anywhere near healthy or have any positive impacts to one's health. But we'll never know unless we dig deeper into the pot. So here goes.

Bak Kut Teh

Broth
Chinese Angelica (Tong Kui)
Chinese ginseng
Polygonatum Odoratum (it’s a flower, dried out)
Licorice root (Tonifying the heart and spleen, moistening the lung to arrest cough, purging fire to remove toxins, relieving spasm to alleviate pain, and moderating other herbs.)
Wolfberries
Rhizoma Ligustici (part of ginger family, great against cold + flu)
Star Aanise
Radix Rahmaniae (great for cleansing liver/kidneys; cooling effect – not in most pre-made packs but essential for the nice colour)
Cassia bark
White pepper
Black pepper
Radix Codomopsitis (Poor man's ginseng)

Now, at this point, the broth looks pretty good especially since most of the herbs have medicinal properties that help stimulate your internal organs, which in turn benefits overall health. But of course you can't have a wholesome soup without the meat or bone component. So let's look at what's contained in a typical pot of bak kut teh.

Pork - 620 calories (Not belly meat)
Tau Pok (Dried tofu) - 520 calories
Mushrooms - 50 calories
Intestines or innards - 280 calories
Total calories contained = 1,470

If you're sharing the bowl with say 3 people, it would be around 490 calories each (the above count serves around 3 to 4). But you'll have to add in your individual rice portions which is around 200 calories for normal rice and up to 300 calories for oily rice. So your one Bak Kut Teh meal, could cost you about 2 hours in the gym and I haven't even included the calorie count for the broth, which is around 50 to 100 calories. So why do people say Bak Kut Teh is healthy? 

Well if you look through the history again, this dish was created for hard labourers. Unfortunately in the present day, we don't do enough hard labour to burn off the amount of calories this dish contains. So unless you workout enough, weekly consumptions of Bak Kut Teh will definitely set you back in your weight watch. Having said that, we can still enjoy the healthy properties of this dish. Just stick to the lean meat, don't eat too much tau pok or fried bread sticks (yau char guay) and don't order the oily rice.

Tasty Pan Mee and dinner at Gao Ren Guan, Jaya One

Took a break from counting yesterday and decided to focus on today's meal. It was really hard trying to control dinner portions and I'm realizing that trying to find cheap healthy options for lunch at work is tough. Most quick food out there are not very healthy and if they are, they usually come with bigger price tags.

Chilli 'Pan Mee' at Face to Face 
Not entirely sure what went into this. But we can safely assume that the main ingredients include the following:
Thick egg noodles - 310 calories
One egg - 65 calories
Fried dried shrimp and chilli - 36 calories
Minced pork sauce - 140 calories
Oil - 123 calories
Total 674 calories

Oh dear, the meal was really tasty but that number doesn't look good at all. The damage during dinner may be even worse and I don't think I'm going to like this tabulation. Let's see how much my picky eating helped.

Dinner comprised of 7 small dishes at Gao Ren Guan

My family, especially my mom, love coming to this place. It serves up food that is similar to what we have at home, is near my mom's house and has reasonable prices. Of course it is more expensive to eat out, afterall, you have to pay the person doing all the cooking and cleaning on your behalf. The only inconvenient thing was me staring at delicious food and having to think twice whether I would be able to burn it during the next gym session.

Fried Threadfin with soya sauch - 518 calories

Fried tofu - 924 calories (I'm surprised as well)

Fried long beans and roast pork - 403 calories

Pork stomach in rice wine soup - 260 calories

Pork rib curry - 603 calories

There were two other dishes that we ordered. Unfortunately, I must apologize for forgetting to take pictures of them. I wasn't able to specifically state down ingredients for each food, as I am short of time. However, if anyone wants to know, just send me a message and I'll break it down. The total calories contained in the above is approximatekly 2,708. But it was split between 6 family members. My portion was about 451 calories and if I add the other two dishes, my meal would hover round the 600 calorie mark.

I didn't manage to eat under my BMR today. But at least I didn't burst the cap and I enjoyed my meals.