Steam Sea Perch (Siakap) in Sweet and Sour Soya Sauce

This is a new recipe I made myself because I didn't buy the plum sauce I normally use to cook the steamed fish.

Ingredients:

1 Ikan Siakap or Sea Perch.You can use any other fish like Spanish mackerel, Sole, Grouper or Red Snapper.

The fish is descaled, gutted and washed.Both sides are slitted with 3 slits.Season with salt, pepper and a bit of thin soya sauce.Leave to marinate for 1 hour in the fridge.

Prepare the steamer.If you don't have a steamer, you can steam in a wok by placing the fish in a plate placed on a cup immersed in water in the wok.A pot cover is used to cover the fish while steaming.

You can also use the oven.Place the fish in a metal container on a rack.The rack below it is filled with water.You steam the fish between 15 to 30 minutes or until cooked.

While the fish is cooking, prepare the sauce as follows:

Cut and slice finely 1 onion, 5 cloves garlic and 3 cm ginger.Heat a little oil in a wok and fry the onions, garlic and ginger till fragrant.Add thin soya sauce, sweet soya sauce,10 pieces of dried Chinese plums(asam boi) and 2 tablespoon tapioca starch mixed in water.Stir.Add more water if sauce is too thick.Add 1 teaspoon oyster sauce.You don't need to add sugar or salt.

For garnishing, you may add any or a mix of the following to the sauce:sliced spring onions,carrot strips,cut cilantro, parsley,celery, fresh green and red chillies or sliced capsicums.

Remove the fish from the oven once it is cooked and place in an oval slightly deep dish.Pour the sauce over the fish and serve with white rice.

To prepare from bottled Chinese plum sauce,the sauce is made as follows:

The fish is prepared as above.To prepare the sauce,the onions,garlic and ginger are similarly fried in a little oil.Add ground black pepper,and add half bottle of the plum sauce.If you like a hotter sauce, you can add a little chili paste instead of black pepper.Garnish as above.

Brainfood-Nutrition and Your Brain

I bought the book 'Brain Food' written by Dr. Brian Morgan and Roberta Morgan many years ago.Most people would view food consumption as an activity to prevent hunger.They would eat anything as long as it pleases their palate until they are inflicted with chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes or heart disease.These are people who eat to their hearts' content and does not bother about the side effects of their diet on their health.

The book reminds me that the right diet is vital for our well being right from the time of pre-birth(in our mothers' womb) and to the time of our demise.How we end our lives is often determined by how we live our lives!

In school we were never taught the effects of nutrition on our brain.We only learnt what happens when food enters our mouth,passes to the gastrointestinal tract and ends up in our bloodstream or in our rectum.

The book teaches how food can alleviate mood swings,memory problems,sleeping problems,lethargy and depression.

From what I understand,we have to eat right during our pregnancy because during pregnancy,malnutrition can retard the child's physical and mental growth.Malnutrition at this time can result in permanent reduction in the number of brain cells.This in turn can interfere with all the subsequent stages of growth and can disturb the whole chain of growth and development.Poor nutrition during pregnancy will result in smaller newborn head size in proportion to the body size.An undersized brain often means lowered intellect and diminished brain functions.

To sustain our well being and maintain overall physical and mental health throughout our life, we need to consume well balanced meals and pay attention to restore the brain's chemical balance with proper nutrients.Among the nutrients needed by the adult brain are the B vitamins(B1,B2,B3,B6 and B12),folic acid, biotin,pantothenic acid,Vitamins A,C,D,K,Minerals Iron, Zinc,Manganese, Copper, Magnesium, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium, Iodine and Phosphorus. Glucose provides energy and helps build new tissues, while protein builds new cells and repair brain cells.

Elderly people also need a balanced, healthy daily diet, just like at any stage of life-and even more so, to help them recover from injuries or illnesses.As a person gets older, the amount of muscle tissue present decreases and the rate at which the body conducts its overall processes slows down.So, just as less sleep is needed, fewer calories are required from the diet.The diet may be adjusted to compensate for the metabolic changes occurring in the body.However, a failure to reduce the amount you eat can lead to obesity, which increases arteriosclerosis,which is detrimental to brain health.

Elderly people need to tailor their diet according to their health condition to prevent or delay diseases of the brain like senility, Parkinson's Disease or Alzheimer's Disease.Keeping the brain active and keeping an active and healthy lifestyle will lead to a graceful aging process for the elderly.

So the lesson learnt from the book 'Brain Food' is that we must always practice a complete and well balanced diet at whatever stage of our lives.A healthy brain will lead to a healthy and happy body.

So, the best practice is to cook using natural ingredients that are free from preservatives, colorings, pesticides and unnecessary additives.Wholesome foods are whole grains, nuts,green vegetables, lean meat, chicken and fish, dairy products and lentils.

I now try to eat brown unpolished rice more often and reduce on fats,oils, meat,salt and sugar.When making omelettes, I would throw away some of the yolks so that less cholesterol is consumed.Since the book mentioned that organ meats are good for the brain I will try to cook them occasionally as they are also high in cholesterol.

As a general rule, whatever meal we cook must have the carbohydrate component, protein component, and vegetables to provide the minerals and vitamins components to make a complete meal.The fat component will come automatically from the way we prepare our meals.We must eat a variety of foods and not stick to any particular type so as to get the maximum benefits from various nutrients available.

Fried Yellow Noodles ( Mee Goreng)

Another family favorite is fried vermicelli and fried yellow noodles or fried flat white noodles( Koay Teow).If vermicelli and fresh noodles are not available,boiled and cooked spaghetti can be used as a substitute.

I normally do not add salt to yellow noodles as I find them already salty.

Ingredients:
500g noodles,washed and tossed.If using dried vermicelli,you have to dip in boiling water before tossing.
2 onions or 6 shallots sliced
5 cloves garlic, sliced
2 tablespoons chilli paste
2 tbsp chilli sauce
3 tbsp sweet soya sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
a little beef or chicken meat cut into small pieces
Alternatively, you can use shrimps and squids instead of beef or chicken.
Mustard leaves ( Daun Sawi)
Beansprouts (Taugeh)
5 pieces fish balls
2 pieces fried taufu
For garnishing:
3 eggs made into an omelette
fried shallots (bawang goreng)
some fresh red chillies sliced
a sprig of spring onion and local celery-cut finely

Special Soya Sauce:
Mix together:
3 tablespoon sweet soya sauce
6 pieces of bird chillies cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon vinegar or lime juice

Heat some oil in a wok or large frying pan.When the oil is hot,lightly fry the onions,garlic and chillies till fragrant.Add meat or seafood and fish balls.If adding meat cook longer to ensure the meat becomes tender.Add chilli sauce and soya sauce. Add noodles,taugeh and sawi.For yellow noodles or koay teow,add a ladle of clean water if you like wet fried noodles.Last of all, add oyster sauce.Add salt to chilli sauce if frying vermicelli or koay teow.

Serve fried noodles in a plate.Garnish with fried shallots,sliced chillies,cut spring onions and celery and strips of omellette.The fried noodles is eaten with a bit of the special soya sauce using a pair of chopsticks.

Pecal

My family loves pecal.This is a kind of salad in peanut sauce which we eat with scalded and tossed rice vermicelli or with nasi empet. Actually I learnt to make pecal from my in-laws after I got married.We never had them when I was young as it is a Javanese dish and my husband's family, although not Javanese, live in a majority Javanese community.We have a similar kind of salad which is called gado-gado but the sauce is prepared differently.Nowadays the pecal sauce is hardly being prepared at home as it is readily available at the markets. I still prefer making them myself as I would make them less sweet but hotter.My daughter Zaty is now quite an expert assistant in preparing the pecal.

You can prepare the vegetables simultaneously with the sauce.
First boil some clean preferably filtered water in a large pot.When the water has boiled, dip in the rice vermicelli in a metal sieve or colander for a few minutes.Toss when cooked and place in a large tray.You can line the tray with banana leave if you want your pecal to be attractively served.You cook the rice vermiceli first so that it will remain white after cooking.If you dip it in the hot water after the vegetables, then you may get green vermicelli.

Vegetables:
5 Long beans, 1 bundle pucuk paku (a kind of fern shoots),1 bundle tapioca shoots,a handful of bean sprouts(taugeh), 1 bundle kangkong(water spinach),1 cucumber, 1 turnip (sengkuang).The beansprouts are scalded first. This is followed by boiling the other vegetables (except cucumber and sengkuang) separately before cutting to bite sizes.The tougher portions of the tapioca shoots, kangkong and pucuk paku are discarded.The cucumber and sengkuang are cut into small 2 to 3 cm strips.

Optional:Tempeh(soya bean cake),taufu(soya bean curd)-are fried and cut into bite sizes.

Place all the vegetables, tempeh and taufu in the tray.

This ia how I make the pecal peanut sauce:

600g peanuts
(A)Rest of Ingredients:
30 dried chillies,cut and deseeded
5 shallots or 2 onions,sliced
prawn paste or belacan, the size of the 3 cm diameter ball
3 tablespoon dried shrimps
tamarind, about double the size of belacan
All the ingredients are fried separately in a little hot oil starting with the peanuts.

Once the peanuts are crunchy, you pound them in a pestle amd mortar or grind in an electric grinder.The nuts do not have to be finely grounded.Maybe about 40% are coarsely grounded.If you feel like it, you can also pound the rest of the ingredients together except tamarind, after you have pounded and removed the peanuts into a bowl.

To mix the pecal sauce:

Place the ingredients A in a bowl and add half of the pounded peanuts.Add some sugar (3 to 4 tablespoons)and tamarind mixed with hot water.Add more hot water or peanuts as necessary for a well mixed sauce that is neither too concentrated nor too thin.Taste before adding more sugar, tamarind juice or salt.

You may eat the pecal by putting all the vegetables, vermicelli or nasi empet and tempeh and taufu in a plate and adding the sauce on top.


If you cannot find some of the vegetables, you can still prepare pecal if you have the basic ingredients, i.e. chillies,onions,belacan and tamarind.However, non-Malaysians may object to the smell of fried belacan so you have to prepare pecal or sambal for that matter, when they are not around, that is if you stay in a students' hostel.For vegetables,try similar vegetables if you cannot find Malaysian vegetables.Who knows pecal may taste better with brussel or pea sprouts,carrots,asparagus, parsnip or lettuce.

Rendang (Meat or Chicken cooked in Spices and Coconut Milk and Coconut Paste)

I normally cook rendang on the eve of Eidul Fitri or Eidul Adha.On other days rendang is eaten at wedding feasts.As rendang is a rich dish, it shouldn't be eaten regularly if you wish to maintain your cholesterol levels.Ikmal loves his rendang to be cooked with boiled and then shelled cockles instead of beef or mutton.He would volunteer to shell the cockles as he could put some of them into his mouth at the same time.

Nowadays cooking rendang is easy because you can buy the coconut cream and coconut paste(kerisik,i.e pounded lightly fried grated or dessicated coconut).You needn't put the lemon grass,galangal, turmeric leaves and kaffir lime leaves if you cannot find them.However, the taste would not be the same.

There are many versions of local rendang.Some make the basic rendang with only chillies as the main spice.I prefer the Rendang Tok version originating from the State of Perak.

Here's my recipe:

Ingredients

1kg beef, cut into fairly large cubes.You can use tough cuts as cooking for a long time will soften them and they taste better.

1/2 cup grated coconut for kerisik, fried lightly till crisply and pounded till oily

2 coconuts, grated and squeezed for thick coconut milk then add 2½ cups water to the residue to mix and squeeze out for general santan, or 1 bar of frozen coconut cream or 1 litre of UHT coconut milk.

(A) Finely pounded and mixed (or grounded with water in a blender):

10 fresh chillies, seeded

15 dried red chillies, seeded

20 shallots

6cm galangal

6 cm ginger

3 tsp fennel powder (jintan manis)

3 tsp cumin powder (jintan putih)

6 tsp coriander seeds

6 candle nuts

4 stalks lemon grass (serai)

(B) Spices:

4cm cinnamon stick

7 cardamoms (buah pelaga)

6 cloves

2 star anise (bunga lawang)

(C):

4 stalks lemon grass, smashed

5 pieces dried tamarind skin (asam keping)

3 turmeric leaves, cut in small strips

Seasoning:

1 tsp salt or to taste

2 tsp brown sugar or palm sugar (gula Melaka)or to taste

4 kaffir lime leaves (daun limau purut), cut in strips too

Heat coconut milk with the pounded ingredients (A) and spices (B) in a deep pot or wok until mixture comes to a boil.

Add the beef and simmer over low heat for 1½ to two hours.Add ingredients C.

Stir occasionally to prevent the meat from sticking to the pot. Add the kaffir lime and turmeric leaves.

When the gravy becomes thick, add the kerisik and lower the heat. Stir briskly until mixture is thick and gravy coats the meat evenly.

Add seasoning to taste, then dish out and serve with rice or ketupat. It is also eaten with yellow glutinous rice.

If you are preparing rendang the night before Eid or a feast, refrain from adding the kerisik and coconut milk until the next day so that your rendang will not turn bad.

If you are making chicken or cockle rendang, all the ingredients are fried in oil over low heat before adding the coconut milk and the rest of the ingredients as they don't need to be cooked for a long time.When using chicken broilers for rendang, you can cook them as in cooking beef rendang.

Nasi Lemak (Rice cooked with Coconut Milk)

Ikmal told me tonight that one of his friends prepared nasi lemak on Sunday and sold them for about RM5 equivalent. The nasi lemak was accompanied by a chicken dish.Wow!I thought.This budding doctor is also a budding entrepreneur.The poor boys who don't fancy learning to cook nasi lemak themselves will not hesitate to buy from this lady student.

Nasi lemak is a national breakfast favorite eaten with sambal, fried dried anchovies,a bit of sliced cucumbers, boiled egg and fried peanuts.The sambal is added with either anchovies, prawns or dried squids.Some people add chicken or beef rendang with their rice. Others may eat with fried fish, either fresh or salted.Zaty loves them with dried squid sambal.Ikmal loves a lot of cucumbers with them.(I will explain rendang in the next post as rendang is also normally eaten during feasts and Eid festivals.)

Here is how I make the nasi lemak.Some people put fenugreek, ginger, lemon grass or onion in their nasi lemak but I don't.

Ingredients

2 cups long grain rice
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups coconut milk (from 1/2 a grated coconut)
2 pandanus leaves, knotted

Wash rice until clean then drain. Put rice, and salt in a rice cooker. Pour coconut milk over the rice. (The level of the coconut milk should be 2cm above the level of the rice.) Cook rice until dry then use a wooden ladle to loosen the grains.

Sprinkle the rest of the coconut milk over the rice. Stir to distribute the milk evenly. Stand for 10 to 15 minutes to allow the rice to absorb the coconut milk. Keep rice warm before serving with other condiments.

Kuah Lodeh (Mixed Vegetables in Creamy Coconut Gravy)

Nasi empet served with 'Kuah Lodeh' and 'Kuah Kacang'



 Here is the gravy to accompany the nasi empet and kuah kacang.I have adapted the recipe which I got from a Malaysian-Singapore Students Newsletter years ago, while I was an A level student myself.

Ingredients:
1 carrot, peel and dice
200g long beans (substitute with french beans if you cannot find long beans),cut into 1.5 cm strips
200g cabbage,cut into 2 cm squares
a few young corn,cut into bite sizes
bean thread (su hun), (can find this in Chinese stores)
Dried Taufu Slices( Fu Cuk),cut in small pieces and soaked in water, then drained,(can find this in Chinese stores)
Fried Bean Curd (Taufu),dice
You may add cauliflower florets,brinjals,fried tempe if you prefer.
2 pieces young bamboo shoots, pre-boiled, drained and cut to 2 cm strips
Turmeric Leaves(Daun Kunyit),optional
2 stalk Lemon Grass (Serai),optional, mash the root.
Coconut Milk, quite thick

Blended Ingredients:
4 cloves garlic
2 cm lengkuas
2cm ginger
2 big onions
4 tablespoon dried shrimps
2 tablespoon chilli boh
3 pieces of candlenuts (buah keras)
1 tablespoon turmeric powder, I normally use 2 cm fresh turmeric, though)

Heat some oil and fry blended ingredients and daun kunyit and lemon grass.Fry until dry and fragrant.Add in the preboiled bamboo shoots, carrot,and thin coconut milk.Thin coconut milk means you add more water to make it less concentrated.

When the carrot is half-cooked,add in the long beans or French beans, young corn, cauliflower and thick coconut milk.Add in the other vegetables, adding fu cuk and su hun last. The coconut milk must cover the vegetables. Add salt to taste.You may also add anchovy soup base if you like.

(You may also add fresh shrimps if you prefer.You don't have to blend them.Just peel off the shell and wash before adding to the gravy. You can boil the shells and use the stock in the kuah lodeh gravy).

When I was a student in the UK, the coconut milk or 'santan' came in packets of frozen cream,a bit like butter.You have to cut it and thaw before adding water and putting in curries or creamy sauces.Now they come in UHT packs and cholesterol free so it seems.I do not know how it is sold in India or Australia, or the US for that matter.

Serve while hot or else the gravy will be absorbed into the vegetables.

Peanut Sauce (for Satay / Nasi Empet)

This is a family favorite eaten on the morning of Eid.Normally we have it with Nasi Empet (Compressed Rice) and Kuah Lodeh(a creamy coconut vegetable dish).

My version of the peanut sauce has dried squids in them.You can also add chicken pieces if you like.

Ingredients:
600 g peanuts fried in a frying pan over low heat and no oil used.Grind in a grinder coarsely
3 or 4 pieces of candlenuts ( buah keras)
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 sticks of lemon grass (serai), cut the top stalk and mash with the end of a flat knive.
2 cm lengkuas (galangal)
4 or 5 shallots. You can use 1 onion if shallots are not available
5 cloves garlic
About 4 tablespoon dried chilli paste or chilli boh
salt, sugar and tamarind juice.
Dried squids is soaked in water for a few hours before cutting into bite sizes and boiling in plain water
1 pint water or just enough to form the sauce
Some oil for cooking the sauce

The candlenuts,coriander,shallots, garlic and galangal are grinded in a blender.
Heat oil in a wok or saucepan.Stir fry the grounded ingredients.Add the chilli paste. Cook over low heat till chillies are properly cooked and fragrant. Add the lemon grass stalks.
Add water and drained squids.Add grounded peanuts,sugar, salt and tamarind juice.Stir and cook until the oil rises to the top.Add water if the gravy becomes dry.

If tamarind juice is not available, use lemon juice.Dried squids, Lemon grass and galangal can be omitted of not available.

To prepare nasi empet:

Wash and toss dry 2 cups of rice.Use a fork to pierce tiny holes in a rectangular (15cmx20cm)polyethylene plastic bag.Fill the bag to slightly less than half its volume with the rice.Staple the end of the plastic bag so that the rice will not spill.Make sure the plastic bag used is quite thick and does not peel when boiled in water.Submerge the rice packets into a pot of clean water and boil. Close the pot with its lid and boil for about 1 to 2 hours or until the rice has expanded in the plastic bag.You have to make sure that the water does not boil dry by replacing boiled water to submerge the plastic bags all the time while cooking.When the rice is cooked, you can place it in a clean dry tray to cool. Cut the rice in cubes and serve with the peanut sauce with slices of cucumber.

Tomorrow I will be writing on how to make the kuah lodeh.Well, come this Eid, Ikmal and Afif who may be celebrating away from home, can cook their own lontong. That is the name of peanut sauce, kuah lodeh and nasi empet all put together. Lontong is served in a bowl with the sauce and gravy served hot.

MOTHER'S DAY

Today is a special day for all mothers. Mothers are being honoured by their children the world over.

I woke up this morning and was pleasantly surprised to receive a Mother's Day text message from an aunt. After thanking her, I sent similar messages to 3 other aunts. Well, they are my 'Mums' now,as my real Mum is no longer with us. She passed away nearly twenty years ago, yetI still miss her.

Everything was quiet in the house when I went to the kitchen. The kettle was hot.The washing machine was on but no one was in sight. There was no breakfast on the table. That's a surprise. I thought mothers are supposed to laze on this day and breakfast will be served by her children.

It was my second daughter, Zay who had woken earlier, thinking that everybody must be tired, had her breakfast and went back to her room after running the wash and putting the kettle on. So I ended having to prepare the breakfast.

I was however rewarded with the gifts from Zay and her sister Zaty, as pictured here (by courtesy of Zay who uploaded them to my laptop). My other children, being away from home had only sent text messages. It's the thoughts that counts.

We didn't need to go out to celebrate this special day. We don't want to rush with others for a place in restaurants as eating out on other days is a normal thing for us. Instead, we spend the day mowing the lawn with their Dad and later preparing lunch and dinner. It is not every day that we get to cook together. So today there are no cooking tips as I have already given the practical tips in the kitchen.

Mums are great only if their offsprings are great. Mums unless they are single parents, cannot be great without a great partner.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Sambal Tumis (Fried Sambal)

Sambal is an Indian word adopted by Malay. In Malay cuisine, sambal is basically a chilli dish. Its 'hotness' depends on the amount of chillies you put. You can tame the chillies by adding sugar, mashed onions and garlic. shrimp paste (belacan) and tamarind juice. A well balanced sambal feels just right on the tongue, not so sweet, not so hot and not so sour.

You normally add a protein component to sambal. This can be in the form of small anchovies, either fried or just washed and tossed; or meat, other fried fish or chicken. The meat has to be pre-boiled and de-bone and de-fat before adding to the sambal. Some people do not put belacan but add chilli sauce instead. If you do so, then you don't have to add sugar as this sauce is sweet enough. My sons love the fried fish sambal while their sister loves it with cuttle fish or squids. In this post, I am not writing the recipe for sambal as I have already listed the main ingredients. You can learn to make good sambal that suits your taste by trial and error. Only with practice will you be able to get the right recipe that suits you.

I do not normally add salt to anchovies sambal as they are already salty. As for the chilies, I would cut the dry chillies in 2 cm strips amd remove the seeds before washing them in a colander thoroughly under running water. Dried chillies may have a lot of preservatives. I would then boil the chillies, the drain and blend them to get what we call 'chilli boh' in our country. I usually use cool boiled water in the blender to grind the chillies. Chilli boh keeps well in the fridge for maybe one week. One has to be careful with chillies as if they are not properly cooked, they can cause upset tummies. When frying them in a little oil for curries or sambals. one has to make sure thay cook slowly and evenly under low heat. You cook the chilli until the oil rises to the top and you have to add a bit of water now and then.

Well that's it. Now I have to get my son, Ikmal to cook the sambal when he's home for the holidays.

Chicken Stew for Beginners

My elder son has been away from home for more than one and a half years now. He is away in another country pursuing his ambition of being a doctor. In the first month of his arrival in the new country, meals were prepared and served. Then, he survived on fried rice purchased on the way back from school. After a bad bout of diarrhea and a week stay in hospital, he has settled to cooking his meals instead.

Nowadays, he is a better cook, judging from the dishes he can talk about when he calls home. A mother often worries that her children will neglect their meals when they are busy with their daily activities. This will result in compromised immunity and they will easily fall ill. When this happens, there will be more worries.Who will take care of them? Will they be able to catch up with their studies after recovering from their illness?Luckily, I can email him recipes or refer some useful websites.

I decided to archive my recipes so that wherever they may be, my sons and daughters will be able to access my library. The dishes that I prepare will be simple, fast to cook and nourishing.


This is a chicken stew that I prepared for dinner today with my youngest daughter.


Ingredients:
(Cooks for 3)
1/4 chicken clean and cut to small bite sizes. Discard skin and excess fat.
A) 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1nutmeg, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, 1cm ginger,3 cloves garlic, a few slices onion- Blend these ingredients. If you don't have a blender, buy powdered spices and chop the rest finely)
B) 1 potato, half carrot, diced
C) 1/2 capsicum , 1/2 tomato, 1 fresh chilli, a few pieces fresh mushroom
D) 1/2 tin Campbells mushroom soup, (or any ready made soup bought at the supermarket), 4 tablespoon tomato puree
E) Dash of mixed dried herbs (Optional)

How to Cook the Above:
In a two litre stew pot, heat 3 tablespoon vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, fry the blended ingredients(A) lightly under low heat until fragrant. Add (D) and 500 ml water.Stir the gravy and add chicken and potatoes. If you find the gravy too thick, add more water. When the chicken and potatoes are half cooked, add carrots. Cook for 5 minutes and add the rest of the vegetables.(You can substitute other vegetables like radish, sweet potatoes, turnips and leeks, etc and cook until tender). Cook for 2 more minutes, add dried herbs, if you want and serve.You don't have to add sugar or salt as the soup is already seasoned and \may be salty.
You can eat with rice.Tonight we had it with baguette.You can toast the baguette if you like. You can also eat the stew with normal bread.
This stew is good if you don't fancy too hot dishes. It is easy to prepare and is full of goodness. You don't have to cook other dishes as it is already a complete meal. Great for cold nights.

If there are leftovers, pack them in a small plastic container and freeze them. Micro-wave or heat them up whenever you are too hungry to cook.