Korea Fresh Ginseng Chicken Soup

Happened to came across The air-flown Korea Fresh Ginseng, brought in by Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corp into Tastefully KL last weekend. 

As most of you may know,  ginseng have been traditional taken to aid many health condition and often taken for general health. it's taken to improve thinking ability (good for work n studies), anti-inflammation and improve immunology system and many others. 

As I have been working hard lately and find myself get easily tired and poor focus. I decided to make some tonic and herbal to drink. Mom says, ones get younger by consuming tonic. 

The Ginseng that I came across at Tastefully is small and slim but the aroma n flavour is powerful. The leaves and stem is also edible. 

Since we got this good stuff, I have make into a Ginseng Chicken Soup, double boil for 8 hours to consume. 

Ingredients :

1 pc x Korea Fresh Ginseng

1 Whole Chicken leg n Thigh

2 pcs x Jujube

Pitch of salt

Step :

1) Boil water - you will need it to pour into the double boil electric boiler.

2) Clean chicken and de-skin. Remove any fats. 

3) Boil the chicken in another pot and let it boil over 15 - 20 mins or until completely cooked. 

4) Wash ginseng thoroughly and de-seed jujube. 

5) Place chicken,  ginseng and jujube into the ceramic pot, pour in hot water, cover it and put into the double boiler. 

6) I turn under high heat until the water is very hot then switch to auto to let it simmer for 8 hours. 

The soup is clear and golden in colour. 

Double boil

Cover with a ceramic lid. 

Double boil,  is a Chinese cooking technique that is commonly used to cook soup and herbal. It uses a ceramic jar put inside the larger pot filled with hot water. The soup is cooked from heat generated from the steam. It cook over long hours,  6 - 8 hours, to finish. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_steaming

Nam-Yu Pandan Chickie

The initial idea of buying the pandan is for making red bean tong sui. However, I have changed my idea to Pandan Leaves Chicken when I'm staring at it. My mind is flooded with the Thai style ones but I didn't have the ingredients at home.

So, I thought of having this combination of nam-yu and pandan if the flavour will blend in well.

Marination
200g chicken breast or thigh - cut into small cube
1 cube of red fermented beancurb (nam-yu / 南乳)
1 tsp of fish sauce
Half tsp light soy sauce
A pitch of chopped garlic
A pitch of chopped onion

Marinate for at least half an hour. Take note on the saltiness as nam-yu and soy sauce is both very salty. Adjust your own level of saltiness. My recommendation is to add in a little of soy sauce so the flavour will be more layered rather than just for the saltiness.

Coat the marinated chicken with corn flour.

Wrap the chicken with pandan leaves. You may coat the leaves and chicken with some oil (optional).

Ensure you wash the pandan leaves thoroughly as there alot dirt.

Pre-Heat Airfryer for 5 mins @ 180°C

Put in chicken. Cook for 15 mins @ 180°C. 

Enjoy the pandan aroma while you can seat back and enjoy the TV. Cooking with Airfryer makes life easier for busy (lazy) people.

Curry Asparagus with Chicken Bits

This dish look very simple but needs a bit of preparation work. I have prep the curry chicken in advance as you will need to soak the chicken in the curry sauce so that the chicken will be full of the curry flavour. When you cook the curry sauce, you may make it more salty as later on you do not need to add anymore seasoning when you cook it with asparagus.

Ingredient A

3 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp paprika powder

1 tsp ginger powder

1 pc cinnamon 

2 pc bay leaf

Ingredient B

500ml water

1 small whole piece chicken breast fillet.

Ingredient C
Asparagus, cut interval on every 2 inch

Mix all Ingredient A into the boiling water. Mix well. Add in the chicken. Cook till chicken cooked thoroughly and until the juice left about half under medium-small heat.

Once ready, let it cool down and transfer the chicken and juices into a zipper bag or aluminum foil. Wrap it nicely to avoid food contamination. Keep in fridge/freezer at least 6 hours or overnight.

Final Cooking:

Slice and cut chicken into tiny bits.

Heat up frying pan and put in a little of oil. Add in the chicken and keep on searing it. When you see the chicken start to get to dry up, add in Shallot and Garlic. Keep on sear until become very dry and fragrance.

Add in Asparagus.

Ready to serve.

Sweet Basil Black Chicken

Adapted from the famous Taiwanese dishes, 3 cup Chicken. The original recipe needs the ratio of 1 : 1 : 1 of Sesame oil, Chinese rice wine and soy sauce. I couldn't copy the taste like how I tasted in Taiwan, so I adjust the taste to taste good.

Ingredients
150g chicken breast fillet, cut into cube
1 small piece of Ginger, cut into thin
2 shallots, chopped
2 cloves Garlic, chopped

2 tbsp Cooking Oil (I used Grapeseed oil)
1 tbsp Sesame oil
2 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce (老抽), add into a small bowl of water.
2 tbsp Chinese Rice Wine
Sweet Basil leafs

Cooking

Heat up the oil (cooking oil + sesame oil)

Pan-fry ginger, onion and garlic (in this sequence). Fry until fragrance.

Add in chicken cube

Pan-fry chicken until brownish.

Add in the bowl of soy sauce and Chinese Rice Wine. Let it boil until dry up abit.

Add in sweet basil.

Ready to serve.

The 'No-Time' Easy Cook Chicken

This is an extremely easy and yet 'impressive' menu to prepare. Impress your mother-in-law, friends, colleagues with this menu, it's suitable for many occasions whether it's a party or potluck.

Basically all you need is a good oyster sauce, soy sauce and any other-kind-of-sauce for flavour.

For oyster sauce, I use Lee-Kum-Kei premium oyster sauce (and yes, more expensive) cause I find the flavour is much better compared to the normal one.

Ingredients that you need :

(A) For Marination

• Whole chicken leg
• Oyster Sauce
• Soy Sauce
• Brown Sugar

Marinate all these together, overnight.

(B) Cooking

• Chopped onion into tiny bits
• Oyster sauce (again) or replace with other sauce such as BBQ/ Pepper/ Cajun/ Hoisin.
• Chinese Rice Wine
• A little of Fish Sauce. 
• A little of Sesame Oil
• Baking Paper (to wrap the chicken)

Marinate the chicken with the Marination Sauce for overnight or at least 4 hours.

I usually will pre-prep all my meat in the standard sauce (Oyster sauce, soy sauce & brown sugar) as it's versatile and it can easily match to many recipe.

Cut the baking paper into square shape. 

Here, you can split the chicken and pack 1 piece of chicken into 1 baking paper.

Now, coat the chicken with the chopped onion, sauces and a little of Chinese Rice Wine, fish sauce and sesame oil.To impress your guests further, you can put in different sauce into each pack to create assorted flavoured Paper Wrapped Chicken. Today, I have used 'Original' (which is oyster sauce) and BBQ. 

Wrap up each chicken and ensure there's no loose end as we want the juices to be trap in the wrap.

Pre-heat Airfryer for 5 mins@200°C.

Put in the Paper Wrapped chicken into the AirFryer for 40 mins@180°C

This is how it look when it's done. 

Use a stewer to poke into the bone, it's cook if there's no bloody juice flow out.

Wrapping in baking paper will capture the juice.

Viola! Now, bring it to your guests.

Isn't it easy? If you don't have a airfryer, you may use an oven also. 

As you can see, I only cook 2 small piece of chicken, just nice for my husband and my dinner. It's time effective and suitable for small family.