Wow, it’s Feb of 2015. After Christmas everything was a whirlwind for me. My parents were around during Christmas so I made a big Christmas meal to commemorate their presence and of course, celebrate all things good in life. While it was such a challenge to have to plan and do the whole meal on my own, I am extremely pleased with the result. The only downside was, I didn’t manage to record or write down much of a recipe like last time. Still, it was a meal to remember.
I didn’t even think about Jan till it was Feb and how it’s wheezing by even faster because Chinese New Year is coming up real soon and people are scattering for preparations. Which I suppose more blogs will post more Asian inspired dishes. So here’s mine. A simple chicken ginger soup.
When we were kids there was this one soup dish that mom would always make with gojiberries. She would put loads of gojiberries in it making sure we eat all the berries saying it would enhance our eyesight. We would pour this soup on our rice and eat it like that. Now I modified it a little using a convenient ingredient which is ginger wine. You can get this at any Chinese medicinal stores. It is mainly for ladies who are undergoing their confinement and had to eat all the gingery stuff. But this is rather good to put in soups and braised dishes. Of course now I make my kids eat the gojiberries too telling them that it will give them superpower eyes. That was motivation enough for my son, my daughter however, just likes rice and soups and won’t question the benefits.
Ginger Wine
The best thing about this soup is that you can also eat it with noodles like mee sua or some other dried fine noodles. They make a quick meal with an added hard boiled egg or some pickled vegetables.
RECIPE FOR CHICKEN SOUP WITH GOJI BERRIES AND GINGER WINE
Ingredients;
Whole chicken cut up to pieces
(minus head, feet and butt but
feel free to use which parts you like)
Thumb size piece of ginger, sliced to strips
10 dried red dates
A generous handful of dried goji berries
1/2 cup of ginger wine
Water
Sunflower oil
Salt
White Pepper
Steps;
1. Rinse the goji berries and get rid of any impurities.
2. Rinse the dates and score each of them.
This brings out the flavour more.
3. Heat a heavy based deep pot with a little sunflower oil. Stir fry the ginger till fragrant.
4. Add in the chicken and brown them all over.
5. Add the ginger wine and let it boil in high heat to get rid of the alcohol.
6. Top off with water.
7. Add the dates and goiji berries. Season with salt and white pepper.
8. Let it come to a rolling boil. Skim off the impurities floating on top.
9. Lower the heat to a simmer.
10. Cover with lid, let it simmer for about 2 hours.
Enjoy!
