Herbal Chicken Soup

Mmmmm, another great alternative instead of soup. This time, cooking this way instead of the usual soup mix is much better in the sense that all flavours essentially do not escape through vapour because the aluminium foil actually keeps the flavour in.

The thing about making this dish is that if you thoroughly want to fully utilise the flavours and herbs, you need to keep the meat marinated for longer, and the cooking process more than an hour. But I did mine in 45 minutes.

This is hot off the pot that the camera lense started steaming up hehe

And like soup, you can always refrigerate the dish if unfinish and it typically tastes even better the next day :)

Usually this dish is accompanied by a simple green vegetable dish such as kailan.

I found the dish a tad on the sweeter side and the herbs are abit too strong for the number of chickens I used. I shall attempt to make this dish again!


makes a dish for 2 people

(Courtesy of Noobcook's herbal chicken post)



Ingredients

• 2 drumstick chicken and 1 chicken thigh
• 2 shitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 8 red dates (will reduce to 4 next time)
• 8 slices of Dang Gui or chinese angelica roots (will reduce to half)
• 2 pieces of Dang Shen or codnopsis roots, cut to approx. 2 inch length (will do 1 next time)
• 2 tsp of wolfberries (halved)
• 2 garlic cloves (maybe increase to 3 next time)
• 2 inch ginger, finely sliced
• 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce (maybe replace with salt instead)
• 1/2 tbsp brown sugar (omit this next time)
• 1 1/2 tbsp chinese cooking wine
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tbsp grated ginger
• Add chicken stock 

Method

1. In a bowl, mix the ingredients for the sauce evenly and marinade chicken in the sauce for a few hours.(only marinated for half an hour)
2. Turn the chicken halfway through the marinating process to ensure that the marinade sauce is absorbed evenly. 
3. On a large piece of aluminium foil, place a small amount of ingredients at the bottom and place the chicken on top. 
4. Pour half of the remaining marinade sauce over the chicken and lay the rest of the ingredients over the chicken. 
5. Pour water into the foil until 3/4 full.
6. Wrap the aluminium foil tightly (just 1 layer). 
7. Steam at high heat for 35 minutes. (I had to steam longer as I placed it in a bowl, 1 hour 15 mins)
8. Open the parcel and flip the chicken to the other side and steam for another 10 minutes. Serve.