Dumbo in the Kitchen - #2: What Every Bachelor Should Learn to Cook

Soup.

A good, nourishing, satisfying pot of soup.

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The other day, I bought two whole chicken legs and half a dozen chicken wings (I don't like chicken breast), a pack of fresh Shitake mushrooms, a "giant" white radish ("lobak", if you wonder), some green leafy vegetables, a pack of rice vermicelli ("beehoon"-lah) and some red chilies (for garnishing and for dipping with soy sauce), and set about preparing a simple but wholesome pot of chicken soup.

There is nothing much to do. Wash the washable ingredients (chicken, mushrooms, radish, chilies, vegetables), cut/chop what needs to be cut/chop (radish into medium cubes; mushrooms into slices; chilies into shreds; vegetables according to the size of your mouth - no kidding, but you should cut the vegetables later if it is not meal-time yet), boil up a pot of soup (about 6 medium bowls of water, or, whatever amount is needed to cover all the ingredients), then put in chicken, radish and mushroom (together, or with 10 minutes of interval between each, according to the listed sequence). Simmer till all the ingredients are nice and tender, and the flavors have been released into the soup. I usually use a thermal cooker (what the heck is it?) or a slow cooker to do the job.

The soup could be prepared well before meal time, if you use a thermal cooker; the wonderful little thingummy will keep the soup piping hot for hours. Slow cooker does the trick, too, but it is not as energy-conserving as the former solution.

When it's time for that romantic candle-light dinner, just soak the beehoon till it's a bit soft (not soggy!) then poach it in boiling water till you get the desired consistency (or what we chefs call "al dente"). Slight poach the green leafy vegetables, too.

Add the soup to the beehoon, add in the vege, sprinkle with a bit of shredded red chilies, and there you have it - a good bowl of beehoon soup to impress your lady friend (unless you have a different preference, that is):

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If you are a bachelor (or if your wife doesn't enjoy cooking, as in my case), you should really learn how to make soups.

Take this soup for example: I prepared a huge pot of it in the morning; my wife and I had beehoon soup for lunch, then noodle soup for dinner (add a couple of poached eggs for variation), and all the while the soup remained hot in the thermal pot.

At night, before going to bed, I brought the left-over soup to boil, and put it back into the thermal pot. The next morning, 5 scoops of Quaker's instant oat in a small bowl, add the soup (you have to re-boil it, to properly "cook" the oat), and voila! A bowl of nourishing chicken-mushroom-oatmeal for breakfast:

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Go get a thermal pot, dude.