I’m a huge fan of soup cooked Chinese-style and my favorites are what my mom cooks at home, of course. I was a little hesitant at how Lee Kum Kee’s hot pot soup base would turn out as I don’t usually add any such sauces to hot pots. If it’s a steamboat dinner, the flavors from the ingredients such as prawns, chicken, fish, carrots, mushrooms, etc, would be sufficient for the soup.
But Lee Kum Kee’s menu-oriented sauces are for the time-strapped individuals, or maybe even those who need to impress future mother-in-laws. So I tested it out…
Just seconds after adding the sauce to the boiling water, the water became soup instantly. There’s MSG in the sauce so it’s definitely tasty, and there’s a lot of pepper in there, as it really packs a punch. So if you like spicy soups, you’ll take to this one, though you might find yourself drinking a lot of water after as it’s quite thirst-inducing.
To counter this, I’d recommend using either more water than recommended for this soup, or using less of the sauce. (The recommended ratio as stated on the pack is 1.5litres of water to 1 packet of sauce)
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Soups are usually left to simmer in the slow cooker at home, but this time round, I boiled all the ingredients to ensure they are cooked fast and then added the packet of sauce. Can you make a decent pot of soup in under 30 minutes? Now you definitely can.
For my soup, I added chicken, prawns, shitake mushrooms, shimeji mushrooms, baby carrots, broccoli and corn.
I felt the black pepper overpowered the taste of all the ingredients I added. So the next time I’m using this soup base again, I’ll probably just make it bak kut tek-style with lots of pork ribs. :D
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Check out my earlier blogposts about these Lee Kum Kee Menu-Oriented Sauces:
