So, today, I’m cooking something Asian, something close to my roots – the all-time favourite Fishball noodles which is sold in every food centre here in Singapore. It’s one of those nostalgic childhood-kind- of-food where I use to eat it during recess time at school. Back then, it only costs 50 cents per bowl. Today, the price had quadrupled!
But these days, the food vendors or cooks usually toss in some seasoning, containing MSG, into the soup stock, which made the bowl of noodle soup a little high on sodium. To avoid using the packaged seasoning, we could boil the soup with Dried Ikan Bilis (anchovies), a healthier alternative, with spices like pepper to prepare the flavourful soup base. Yes, mind you, besides avoiding food which are in sugar, we also need to stay away from food which contains too much salt or sodium. The excess sodium isn’t too good for your heart and body. Eat only what’s good for your body.
To prepare the Dried Ikan Bilis stock base, you will need about 2 tablespoons of Ikan Bilis and add it into a pot of about 500 ml of water. You could soak the Ikan Bilis in the water for about 5 to 10 minutes before putting the water to a boil for about 15 minutes.
I’ve made a suicidal mistake of adding 5 tablespoonfuls of Ikan Bilis into 300 ml of boiling water. The Ikan Bilis soup base was thick and tasted fantastic but later my body was suffering from the after effects of the excess sodium. My mouth felt constantly dry and I kept craving for something sweet to balance out the saltiness in my mouth. That’s a real suicidal attempt which I never dared to try again. Ever.
Instead of using those white or yellow chinese noodles, I use organic spirullina noodles bought from the supermarket. I use to love eating those big fat yellow noodles with my fishballs but now I got to turn away from it because those yellow noodles are among one of the noodles with the most calories.
The organic spirullina noodles are conveniently packed into 4 servings in a box. Once again, these organic products isn’t cheap but it’s definitely more nutritious for the body.
So once, the Ikan Bilis stock is ready, I add the noodles along with some fishball and chicken slices into the boiling hot pot of the soup stock. To spice it up a little, I added some chilli paste and then top it off with cut Chinese Parsley. I also added some green tea leaves in the soup stock that provides a light fragrant aroma to the soup.
Healthy Fishball Noodle Soup
Organic Spirullina Noodles
Fishballs
Chicken Breast Meat
Chilli Paste
Green tea leaves
Chinese Parsley
Soup base
2 tablespoons of Dried Ikan Bilis
500 ml of water
