Wolfberry Chicken

Last week, besides trying the chicken with basil leaves, we also tried out the wolfberry chicken dish for one of our dinners. The recipe book recommended chicken wings but we used the entire chicken instead.

Wolfberry is another Chinese herb widely regarded as nutritious and consumed by the Chinese. It is also widely used in confinement recipes. Among the benefits of wolfberries are to improve blood circulation, increase energy and vitality, improve eyesight, and provide natural resistance to colds, flu, and disease. It was even reported that Wolfberries were among the secrets behind the longevity of the Himalayan people, as well as the north-western Chinese. And the best wolfberries are reported to be those from Ningxia autonomous region of China.

For all the health reasons, you should give this dish a try. The ingredients and the preparation method are again simple and straight-forward.

Ingredients:
5 tablespoon of wolfberries. (Quantity largely depends on how much you like the sweetness of wolfberries. Cut down on the quantity if you prefer less sweetness).
1 whole chicken (cut into small pieces)
100ml water
4 tablespoon of sesame oil

Seasoning:
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
Dash of sugar
1 tablespoon of abalone sauce

Method:
Clean chicken and drain well
Heat the sesame oil and add in the chicken. Cooked until it changes colour
Pour in the seasoning, wolfberries and water and simmer on medium heat until the water dries up or when chicken is cooked.
Serve hot.

Black Beans with Chicken Feet Soup

As I have mentioned in my earlier post, my sister was responsibled for the soup on Saturday. This is the soup that she prepared. It is also one of the many soups that a mother still under confinement could prepare and drink. It is an extremely simple soup to prepare and apparently very nutritious and reported benefits include enriching and renourishing red blood cells. (I am not a chinese medicine man. Just stating what I was told. You might want to check this out with the experts in the Chinese medical hall).

Ingredients:

• 6 nos of chicken feet
• 100g of whole chicken carcass
• 100g of black beans
• 10 red dates
• 2000ml water

Method:

• Clean and rinse chicken feets and carcass. Blanch them in boiling water.
• Remove and rinse under cool water and drain well.
• Put chicken, black beans, read dates and water into a deep pot and bring to boil.
• Reduce to low heat and cook for 2 1/2 hours.
• Season with salt.
• Serve hot.

Steamed Pao Shen Chicken Soup

My wife complained that I have not been boiling any soup for her lately. So, I placed an order for a black chicken yesterday and used half the chicken for this soup tonight.

This again, is a recipe for ladies still under confinement.

The ingredients are simple and the preparation equally straight forward.

Ingredients:

• 100g pao shen
• 15 pieces of red dates
• half black chicken
• 100ml DOM
• 100ml liquor
• 300ml water
• 1 teaspoon wolfberries

Method:

• Combine all the ingredients together into a double boiler and double boil for 4 hours. Serve hot.

I reduced the volume of DOM and liquor. She has a low tolerance for liquor. Don't want her to start singing 'I love you. You love me.' the whole night ...hehehe.. (Read my earlier post on Barney and you will know what I meant)

Chinese Herbs for Confinement

Chinese believes a woman's first 30 days immediately after delivery (also known as confinement period) is an important period to renourish the body. Hence, traditional and years of history have passed down a list of Chinese herbs that should be consumed, essential toward renourishing and rebuilding the health of the new mother.

I am no expert in Chinese herbs or medicine. All I know was we were instructed to get these specific herbs for the confinement lady to prepare the required dishes for my wife. From the list that we have and also after referring to some confinement recipe cook books, I have compiled a list of Chinese herbs commonly used during confinement in one way or another. You might want to refer to your `confinement lady' or your elders to confirm the list to acquire, but please do acquire them early. Once you have delivered, you would not have the time to go shopping for them and believe me, your husband (like I am) will be equally busy and `blur' when it comes to these.

The list of most commonly used herbs include the following:-

• Red Dates (lots of it because these dates are also boiled as drinking water)
• Black Dates
• Dried Longan
• Black Fungus
• Dang Shen
• Dang Gui (Chinese Angelica)
• Wolfberries (lots of these as well because they are required in a lot of dishes)
• Dried scallops
• Cordyceps
• Bei Qi

Other herbs would also include:-

• Pao Shen (Ginseng)
• Shou Wu
• Shou Di
• Huai San (Dioscorea yam)
• Yuk Chuk (Hoi Chuk which is apparently better or so I am told)
• Red Grain Rice

Besides the above, get ready lots of old ginger, sesame oil and black peppercorn which are used in almost every dish. Apart from that, Chinese wine such as Chinese white rice wine, glutinous rice wine and Shaoxing wine will also comes in handy.

Well, I hope that the list above helps you to prepare for your coming `wonderful' period of what Chinese called `CONFINEMENT.' (Confine - restrain from going out, prevent from doing certain things, limited to only consume certain predetermined food). Now, how wonderful can that be?