Braised Chicken with Mushroom and Chestnut

Dried shitake mushrooms are versatile, affordable and widely used in Asian cuisine. Their meaty texture and smoky flavour is great paired with other varieties and in this case I've used them in a soy-based dish, braised with chicken and chestnuts. This dish goes very well with plain white rice.

Recipe for Braised Chicken with Mushroom and Chestnut

Ingredients

500 gm free-range chicken, skin removed, cut into bite size
6 dried Shitake mushrooms, soaked, stemmed and cut
60 gm dried Chestnuts, soaked for about 5 hours or more till puffed up and remove the skin from the crevices of the nut. (Best to do this a day before)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp dark soya sauce
1 Tbsp light soya sauce
3 cups water
Seasalt and some Rock Sugar to taste
1.1/2 tsp cornflour + 3 tsp water to thicken
Shaoxing cooking wine

Method

Marinate the chicken with some seasalt, let rest.
In a wok, saute the crushed garlic with some oil till fragrant, add in the chestnuts, stir-fry followed by the mushrooms. Add in the sauces, some rock sugar, water and bring to the boil. Then lower heat, cover and simmer.
Once the chestnuts are slightly soft, add in the marinated chicken pieces and let cook till meat as well as the chestnuts are tender. (You may need to add more water if necessary).
Thicken the sauce with the cornflour mixture, fine tune to desired taste.
Drizzle on some Shaoxing wine, turn off heat.
Ladle onto serving plate and serve with hot rice.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours for this theme.

Hakka Mee aka Hakka Noodles

This is yet another one dish meal, Hakka Mee/Hakka Noodles. These noodles are quite similar to Won Ton Noodles, except that they have less lye water and the noodles are a bit flat and thicker. They're served with bean sprouts with a generous serving of minced meat sauce. the noodles, ........... need to loosen them up before cooking serve with chilli sauce topped with chopped garlic ..... that will do the trick ..... yummy! Recipe for Hakka Mee aka Hakka Noodles Ingredients 180 gm Minced Pork 60 gm Garlic - chopped 200 gm Bean Sprouts 4 dried Chinese mushrooms - soaked and diced 3/4 cup water 1 Tsp cornflour + 3 Tbsp of water 3 servings of Hakka noodles Oil for frying. Garnishing - Chopped spring onions Seasoning for minced pork 1/2 Tsp Salt 1 Tsp sugar 1 Tbsp Fish sauce 1 Tsp dark soya sauce A dash of pepper Preparation Saute the chopped garlic with 1 Tbsp oil, fry till fragrant Add in the seasoned minced pork, diced mushroo

Herbal Jelly ~ Gui Ling Gao

H erbal Jelly ~ Gui Ling Ga o literally translated means 'Tortoise Jelly' is one of my family's favourite desserts. It's much more economical to prepare this at home for you'll need to fork out between Rm 9 to Rm 11 for a bowl of this cooling dessert in any of those herbal tea outlets. This soothing jelly, served chilled, is supposed to be able to help reduce our body heat, helps to get rid of toxins and is believed to be good for the skin thus culminating a healthier complexion.

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Double Boiled Herbal Chicken Soup

Double boiling is slow cooking ........ means to put a soup pot or any covered ceramic or steel pot inside a bigger pot, immerse in boiling water, and let the soup cook at a lower temperature. Hence the soup is cooked from heat generated from the boiling water and not from direct heat source. Double boiling lets the soup ingredients slowly release their nutrients into the soup, thus making it tasty and wholesome. It's a long cooking process, roughly averaging 2 to 4 hours. The tip is not to open the cover to check on the soup as it'll bring down the temperature and affect the cooking process. The plus point is there's little evaporation and the soup will not boil over. The only thing is to monitor that there's enough water in the bigger pot and not let it run dry. Of course, nowadays, the slow cooker is another alternative to double boiling, saves the hassle of checking the water level.

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