To change the family’s taste, the two dishes of clam soup cooked with starfruit and clam soup cooked with seaweed promise to make your meal more delicious and flavorful. Let’s get cooking and prepare this delicious soup!
1. Clam Soup Cooked with Starfruit
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Preparation
45 minutes
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Difficulty
Easy
Ingredients for Clam Soup Cooked with Starfruit For 4 people
Clams 500 gr Starfruit 150 gr Garlic 15 gr Lemongrass 10 gr Tomatoes 160 gr Shallots 15 gr Salt 10 gr Seasoning powder 10 gr White sugar 10 gr Dill 100 gr Oil 20 ml
How to Choose Fresh Ingredients
How to Choose Good Tomatoes
- Ripe tomatoes usually have a plump skin and a red color, feel heavy in hand, and have a light fragrance.
- Choose tomatoes if the stem is still fresh and green, and when you gently pull the stem, it should still stick tightly to the fruit; if the fruit is ripe, then it’s a tree-ripened tomato.
How to choose delicious fresh starfruit
- Choose starfruit that is slightly ripe, still a bit green, fresh, crunchy, not bruised, and without dark spots or blemishes.
- Do not buy overripe starfruit as it will become mushy and not tasty when cooked.
How to cook clam soup with starfruit
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Prepare the clams
You soak the clams in diluted salt water with a few slices of chili for 1 – 2 hours to help them expel all the sand.
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Prepare other ingredients
You wash the tomatoes, cut them into wedges. Cut the lemongrass into pieces and smash it. Wash the starfruit, trim the fibrous part on each edge, then turn it sideways and cut into beautiful star shapes.
Peel and finely chop the shallots and garlic. Wash the dill and chop it finely.
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Sauté the tomatoes
Put 20ml of cooking oil into the pot, when the oil is hot, add the shallots, garlic, and lemongrass to sauté until fragrant. When the garlic is golden, add 80gr of tomatoes and sauté over medium heat for 3 minutes until cooked. Be careful not to sauté for too long, as it will make the tomatoes too soft and not tasty.
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Cooking the soup
After stir-frying the tomatoes, add 200ml of water to the pot and cook over high heat. When the water boils again, add the clams and cook for 5 minutes until the clams open completely.
Next, add the remaining 80g of tomatoes and the starfruit to the pot and stir well until the ingredients are cooked evenly. Finally, season the soup with 10g of salt, 10g of seasoning, and 10g of sugar.
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Final product
Serve the soup in a large bowl, garnished with fragrant dill, and start enjoying it.
This soup has a bit of sourness from the starfruit and tomatoes, the sweet taste of clams, and is delicious when eaten with fish sauce and noodles or rice!
2. Clam soup with seaweed
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Preparation
30 minutes
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Processing
30 minutes
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Difficulty level
Easy
Ingredients for Clam Soup with Seaweed Serves 4
Clams 500 gr Dried seaweed 50 gr Water 300 ml Green onion 50 gr MSG 5 gr Sugar 5 gr Salt 10 gr Chili 20 gr Seasoning powder 10 gr Ginger 20 gr
How to Choose Good Dried Seaweed
- First, carefully check the manufacturer’s information, main ingredients, and price on the product packaging.
- For imported products from Japan or Korea, you should carefully read the Vietnamese part printed on the packaging to know the best way to use and store the seaweed.
- Choose to buy dried seaweed from reputable manufacturers that are well-known and highly rated by many people.
How to Prepare Clam Soup with Seaweed
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Prepare the seaweed
Soak 50gr of dried seaweed in 100ml of water for 15 minutes. Once the seaweed has expanded, cut it into small pieces.
Tip: Since the amount of dried seaweed will expand significantly, remember to adjust the amount of water accordingly when soaking!
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Prepare clams
To clean the clams, so that there is no sand when eating, soak the clams in diluted salt water with a few slices of chili for 1 to 2 hours to allow the clams to expel the sand.
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Sauté spices
Add 20ml of oil to the pot, when the oil is hot, add 10gr of minced shallots and sauté until fragrant. Then, add 20gr of sliced ginger and stir-fry over medium heat for 3 minutes until the ginger is cooked.
Tip: Ginger will enhance the aroma of the seaweed, making your soup more delicious and appealing!
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Cook the soup
After sautéing the spices, add 200ml of water and cover the pot, bringing it to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, reduce to medium heat, add all the seaweed, stir well, and season with 5gr of sugar, 5gr of monosodium glutamate, 10gr of salt, and 10gr of seasoning powder.
Next, add the clams, stir well, and cook for 5 minutes until the clams fully open. Finally, add 40gr of chopped shallots to complete the dish.
Small tip: You should add the clams at the end because if cooked too long, the clams will shrink and lose their sweetness, making the soup less tasty.
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Product
The soup is fragrant with the smell of seaweed, blended with the sweet taste of clams and the aroma of shallots, making your meal more appealing.
How to choose fresh and delicious clams
- Choose clams that are closed and hard to open. If they are easy to open, it means the clams are dead.
- If the clams are open, touch them with your hand. Fresh clams will move or close their shells.
Tips for cleaning clams, removing sand
- After buying the clams, wash them with clean water. Then put them in a bowl of diluted salt water with a few slices of chili. Soak for about 1 – 2 hours, and you can be sure that your clams will be free of dirt and will expel all the sand inside.
- Additionally, you can use warm water at about 50 degrees Celsius to make the clams expel sand faster. In water at 50 degrees Celsius, the clams will feel threatened and will protect themselves by absorbing more water, thus speeding up the sand expulsion process.
- Typically, it only takes about 10 minutes to have clean clams ready for cooking. However, this method requires the right temperature; otherwise, the clams will cook.
The dish clam soup paired with starfruit or seaweed is very delicious and worth trying. Wish you success!
*Image and recipe source from the YouTube channel Cooky TV and the channel Wife’s Kitchen
