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soup

Dreamy, Creamy Curry Coconut Seafood Soup

March 12, 2019 By Eleanor Hoh 12 Comments

I love challenging myself to come up with a dish using ingredients I already have!  And this Dreamy Curry Coconut Seafood Soup came about after my first attempt at a dinner party with this one-dish soup.  It is so fast, making it a super weeknight dinner!

Some helpful notes…
Use the same technique as with stir frying, cook each vegetable SEPARATELY as they don’t cook at the same rate. 

Use a wide shallow bowl, I got these beautiful orange ones at West Elm and they are perfect for presenting any dish. My new favorite bowls. I have them in white and gold because they ran out of orange.

Use WHATEVER vegetables you have, that’s the beauty of being a Wok Star! None of my cooking is about specific ingredients. 

Use a good brand of curry powder, it makes a world of difference, don’t use curry sauce!   I love Baba’s from Malaysia, a brand of curry powder my mom introduced me.

Start with 1 tablespoon for 3 bowl pot which is what I did for 2 people. Everyone has different taste profiles, so adjust according to how spicy you like it.  Just know when you add coconut milk, it will dilute the spiciness, so adjust after that as well.

This dish was originally inspired by a Curry Shrimp soup I loved at Lillikoi Organic Living in South Beach. If you ever get a chance, pop in there for their version.

When you like a dish at a restaurant,  claim it for yourself, put your spin on it and use what you like and expand on it. That easy, that’s what being a Wok Star is all about. It’s more about the cooking PROCESS than specific ingredients and measurements.

This post is about shifting your cooking mindset…
Cooking is about FLAVORS, TEXTURES AND COLORS, in that order. If you focus on those, everything else will fall into place. I repeat this a lot in my cooking class. Keep practicing and the process will become second nature.  And when that happens, you’ll look forward to CREATING instead of avoiding cooking because it’s drudgery. 

What makes cooking EASY is if you stock some basics then you’ll be able to create some pretty fantastic dinners! This brings me to a much needed blog on stocking basics, that’ll be next. 

Dreamy Curry Coconut Seafood Soup: shrimp, salmon with snow peas and mini sweet peppers. 
I poached salmon and shrimp ahead and reheated broth to pour over when guests arrived. It worked out so well, all about the planning.
Snow peas, mini multi colored sweet peppers and scallions. Crunchy textures and added a pop of color.

Here’s a step by step for Dreamy Curry Coconut Seafood Soup…
Ingredients:
Salmon cut into big chunks
Shrimp
Brussels Sprouts
sweet corn
mini sweet peppers
G&G
Scallions

Flavorings:
TSP (tamari, sherry, pepper white)
Curry powder (see note above)
Coconut Milk

Garnish:
chopped scallions
chopped Cilantro
Lime wedges


Method:

    1. Start by using the bowl you will serve in as a measuring vessel for the broth and add 1 extra bowl because broth tends to boil down over time.
    1. Next, add flavorings to broth: G&G;  TSP and curry powder, mix well.
    1. Poach tilapia on slow simmer so they don’t break. Use slotted spoon to transfer to serving bowl.
    1. Poach shrimp till just pink, spoon around tilapia in bowl.
    1. Blanche SEPARATELY Brussels Sprouts, sweet corn, sweet peppers in boiling broth and take out with slotted spoon and place around seafood in bowl.
  1. Reheat broth to rolling boil. Depending on how many guests you are feeding (1 can of coconut milk for more than 4 people), I only put in about 4-6 tablespoons of coconut milk for 2 of us so it’s not so rich and heavy.
Present garnishes in separate bowls on a nice tray with a flower arrangement.
Garnishes:

  1. Put garnishes in separate bowls in case guests don’t like a certain one (I learned that one!)
  2. Squeeze lime wedge over your soup, lime is amazing, it helps to ‘wake up’ all the flavors and make them shine and accentuated. However, don’t overdo it because then it becomes too sour and ruin the other flavors. You can also swirl in some coconut cream. Sprinkle chopped scallions and cilantro for a complete fresh flavor blast.
  3. I’ve now added my new fav find…Crispy shallots or Crispy Red Onions from Asian market. They have NO MSG or processed chemicals, only fried in either soy bean oil or coconut oil. 

I remember my mom taught us how to shallow fry shallots in oil. They are sprinkled on many dishes in Malaysia especially noodle dishes, they give a nice crunch and superb flavor, salivating just thinking about these, ha, ha. Peeling shallots and cutting them thin, then frying is so much work, I was elated when I discovered them already fried in a jar from the Asian market.

There is nothing more rewarding than hearing your hubby say how much he enjoyed my Curry Coconut Seafood Soup, dreamy and creamy. 

Now, dream up your own version and share with us in COMMENTS below or ask me questions!


Filed Under: blog, Easy Weeknight Dinners, seafood, soup Tagged With: "coconut milk", "curry seafood soup", "healthy cooking", "one dish meals", "weeknight dinner", seafood, soup, Wok Star Eleanor Hoh

Gratitude: 5 Minute Wonder Soup

November 9, 2012 By Eleanor Hoh 18 Comments

Gratitude is a very loaded word for me!  The older I get, the more I realize I’ve inherited many traits from my parents.  Good and bad. The good?  Learning to cook from my parents, they had two totally different styles!  The bad, well, we won’t get into it.  My dad is all about using top notch, expensive ingredients.  My mom focuses on homestyle cooking (my kinda cooking).  What they share is not using recipes and it’s such a liberating technique! It’s made me enjoy the challenge of using what I have.  It’s made me tap into my intuition and creative side so I don’t rely on following recipes.  I am truly grateful to my parents for introducing me to this liberating journey to cooking. It’s made me want to tell the world (and I have been), this is how you want to cook if you were stuck on a desert island or not!
After a recent sister reunion, I decided I’d make more of an effort to be grateful for what I have and not take things for granted, be ready to let go when the time is right and be open to new things.  And the most important?  Be grateful everyday because I’ve only got one life, so I need to make everyday COUNT and be the best that I can!  In fact, ‘Gratitude’ is the theme of this month’s #LetsLunch challenge, please check below for more posts from other Lets Lunchers, and  check back for more or get the feed! 
So, with that said, who’s ready for 5 Minute Wonder Soup? I came up with this name because it really takes about 5 minutes from beginning to end.  A dish I learned from my mom.  She came up with this dish because after a hard day of teaching at a boy’s school, she needed to whip something up quickly for a family of 7! It is so easy, fast and tasty, you’ll want to try it immediately.

5 Minute Wonder Soup

Substitutions:
You can substitute other types of meat like pork, beef, lamb, chicken, endless. Use a cut that’s NOT tough and chewy. Slice into thinner bite size pieces so they cook faster. This is the same cutting technique you would use for stir frying.  Good seafood substitutions are baby scallops, fish (salmon, grouper, yellowtail, tilapia), mussels, clams. It’s entirely up to you with vegetables but I want to say Less is More applies here. Otherwise it becomes a 10 minute, not 5 minute wonder soup which is the goal of this dish!  Anything in the cabbage family works, kale (curly or not), napa cabbage, bok choy (white stem or Shanghainese).
Tips for cookware & utensils:
Using a wok of course makes this so much easier because of its wide surface area and depth to work with. Mine is a thin walled, lightweight, round bottom cast iron wok which I use on a portable butane gas stove set on top of my electric stove (click on link to find out why I have this setup!)   But if you don’t have a wok, use the widest pan you have, stainless steel is good.
Accompaniment:
We don’t eat starch like rice or noodles but if you want to, have some red rice or soba noodles, or glass noodles. Make this ahead so they’re ready.

Ingredients:
3/4 lb shrimp, shelled and deveined
1/2 packet tofu puffs, halved into diagonals 
couple of bok choy heads, separate stems and wash well
1 knob of ginger, washed in cold water, dried & shredded
2 cloves of garlic, smashed & diced
1 carton chicken broth (use beef if you’re using beef or lamb)
squirt of tamari
dash of sherry
dash of white pepper
pinch of sea salt 
1 scallion, sliced diagonally really thin or chopped in thin rounds
Few sprigs of cilantro, chopped for garnish (optional or sub with parsley)

3 easy steps for 5 minute wonder soup! 

  1. Fry veggies & tofu first w/half of garlic & ginger, remove from wok to plate. Then fry shrimp with rest of garlic & ginger (just till they turn pink so you don’t overcook them), add to dish of veggies.
  2. Add carton of stock into wok and let it come to a boil, add squirt of tamari, dash of sherry, dash of white pepper and pinch of sea salt. Adjust to your taste.
  3.  Add veggies and shrimp into soup, you’re done!  Serve in big bowls, garnish with scallions and cilantro and ENJOY!

Here are more Let’s Lunch posts, do check back for more…

Gratitude “Plumb” Cake from Lisa at Monday Morning Cooking Club
Gratitude Fried Rice from Linda at spicebox travels
Seafood Chowder from Lucy at A Cook and Her Books
Cracked Black Pepper and Blue Cheese Crackers (gluten free) from Charissaat Zest Bakery
A Thanksgiving tablecloth tradition from Lucy at In a Southern Kitchen
Gratitude Soup from Rashda at Hot Curries and Cold Beer
Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Sugar (gluten free) from Linda at Free Range Cookies
Pumpkin Roll with Pecans from Annabelle at a Glass of Fancy
5-Minute Wonder Soup from Eleanor at Wok Star
Green Tomato Salad from Renee at My Kitchen and I
Asian-Style Pickled Oyster Mushrooms from Joe at Joe Yonan
Pain au levain from Rebecca at GrongarBlog
If you want to join #LetsLunch, just tweet with this hashtag and someone will answer you!  I’ll be sporadically posting on Let’s Lunch due to overload, stay tuned.
 

Filed Under: "one dish wok meals", #LetsLunch, shrimp, soup, toufu, weeknightdinner, wok cooking Tagged With: "wok cooking", shrimp, soup, tofu, weeknightdinner

Miso Soup & Salad

March 3, 2012 By Eleanor Hoh Leave a Comment

Tip for making quick, tasty lunches? Have a few ingredients handy like miso paste & soup in cartons, walnuts, all have good shelf life. Scallions is a must, they garnish, add a punch to everything plus give chicken breast & yellow miso soup some color! Don’t be afraid to use leftover cooked vegetables to salad. I had spicy brown bean eggplant, broccoli & roast sweet potatoes which I added to spring mix, tomatoes, walnuts & scallions. I’m in love with a ‘vase whisk’ I bought recently which is perfect for my home made salad dressing. I’ll tell you more about this in another post. Drinking soup from my black & red lacquered bowl with lid makes it taste so much better!
20120303-142640.jpg

Filed Under: healthy, lunch, salad, soup Tagged With: healthy, lunch, Miso, salad, soup

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