No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

I cooked this simple Herbal Chicken Rice during one of the days of the Lock Down.  I have a penchant for Chinese herbal food, be it herbal soup or herbal chicken.  This is a very simple recipe and doesn't call for a lot of ingredients and I'm sure most of you will be able to prepare this for your family. Herbal Chicken Rice  ~  药材鸡饭  Ingredients 450 gm whole chicken leg, chopped 1/2 cup rice Chinese cooking wine Light soya sauce Seasoning for chicken  3 pieces Tong Kwai (Chinese Angelica Root) 3 pieces Pak Kei (Astragalus Root) Salt Light soya sauce Method Season the chicken for about a few hours or preferably overnight. Wash rice, add a little less water than normal for the 1/2 cup rice. Place seasoned chicken on top of the rice.  Press the 'cook rice' function. Once rice is cooked, remove the chicken, fluff up the rice. Add a dash of cooking wine, light soya sauce to taste. Dish out and serve with the chicken.

I had my first taste of Cordycep flower soup in a Chinese restaurant and didn't hesitate to ask the waitress what were those curly, twisty, crunchy and chewy 'strings' in the soup.  Her reply was that they were Cordycep flowers (scientific name Cordycep Militaris), a sort of woody cultivated mushrooms. According to traditional Chinese medicine, Cordycep flowers do have some nutritional health benefits, such as nourishing the lungs, improve sleep, reduce fatigue just to name a few. After cooking, you may notice that the soup has a hint of orangey colour. Cordycep Flower Soup ~  Confinement food ~  猪骨虫草花汤 Ingredients 25 gm dried cordyceps flowers, rinsed, 450 gm soft pork bones for soup 10 seedless red dates 10 gm goji berries 20 gm yuk chook 2.1/2 lt water seasalt to taste Method Blanch the pork bones in hot water, drain, rinse and set aside Boil 2.1//2 lt water in a pot and once boiling, add in the dried cordycep flowers,  ...

The Burdock root had always attracted my attention whenever I spotted it during my marketing rounds.   I had been wondering how to cook with it as I know that it's a soup ingredient until one day I saw a lady promptly dropping a long Burdock root into her shopping basket.  On inquiring further she told me that it's very nutritious and rattled off the ingredients that she will normally use to make this soup.   So today, I'm sharing my recipe or rather hers with you. Burdock root yuzhu and apple soup ~  牛蒡玉竹苹果汤   Ingredients    400 gm pork shoulder, cut into chunks 150 gm Burdock root 50 gm yuzhu (polygonatum) 1 green apple 2 honey dates 3 lt water Seasalt to taste Method Scald the pork in boiling water, remove and rinse. Wash, peel and core the apple.  Cut into wedges. Peel off the skin from the Burdock root and slice. Rinse the yuzhu. Fill a pot with 3 litres of water, bring to a boil and add in all the ingredie...

To combat the haze I made this Mulberry Chrysanthemum tea as it's caffeine free and Chrysanthemum is a natural coolant which helps to lower the temperature in our body, lower cholesterol, brings relief to sore throats, redness, itichiness and dryness in the eyes.   Chrysanthemum flowers come in many colours, white, yellow, purple and while the disc florets are yellow, the main types used are those with white or yellow petals.  Mulberry leaves on the other hand contain more  calcium than green tea thus help in strengthening bone mass.  Mulberry leaves are also caffeine free and are also a great source of vitamins A,B and C, minerals and amino acids.   Wolfberries , native to China helps in improving eyesight, general well-being and strengthening the immune system. Recipe for Mulberry Chrysanthemum Tea  ~   桑叶菊花茶 Ingredients 2.1/2 litre water 25 gm dried chrysanthemum flowers 20 mulberry leaves 6 honey dates (mut choe) 10 gm...

This is a delicious, fast and easy dish which can be prepared for lunch or dinner.  The chicken has a slight tinge of sweetness and the added herbs lent a sweet smelling fragrance to the dish.  Serve with rice or plain white porridge. Recipe for Herbal Soya Sauce Chicken ~ 药材酱油鸡  Ingredients 800 gm free-range chicken, chopped 1.1/2 Tbsp light soya sauce  1/2 Tbsp dark soya sauce pinch of salt 3 pcs Star Anise 1 bulb of garlic 2 pcs Dong Quai/Angelica sinensis 3 pcs Pak Kei/Astrgalus root 4 cups water Rock sugar to taste 2 to 4 pcs of  fried bean curd (optional) 2 hard boiled eggs  (optional) Method Heat up a wok with a bit of oil and lightly fry the garlic and star anise. Add in the water, sauces and once the water starts to boil, add in the chicken pices. Add in the dong quai and pak kei, salt and some rock sugar. Let it simmer for a while, then add in the bean curd and hard boiled eggs. Once the chicken is cooked, fi...

I used both fresh Turmeric aka 'kunyit' and Galangal aka 'lengkuas' in this Turmeric Chicken recipe and together with crushed lemon grass and a sprinkling of kaffir leaves, this chicken dish was extremely delicious and fragrant.  It was indeed a good accompaniment with white rice, roti pratha or even plain bread.  Above all, this chick dish was very easy to whip up without much fuss. Recipe for Turmeric Chicken  ~   黄   姜   鸡 Ingredients 2 chicken legs, cut into two 10 shallots 10 gm fresh turmeric 3 to 4 cm galangal 3 stalks lemon grass, crushed 1 fresh chilli 5 pieces fresh kaffir leaves Salt and sugar to taste Method Blend or pound the shallots, turmeric, galangal and lemon grass.  Add in some salt, sugar, mix well. Marinate the chicken pieces with the above pounded ingredients, preferably overnight. In a pan, place the marinated chicken pieces, add in about 1/2 cup water, brin...

This is a quickie dish to whip up if you're short of time.  I've never tried steaming fish with Ginseng and I added a bottle of Chicken essence as well.   Yes, it's ultra delicious especially the nutritious sauce..... definitely need more hot rice to mop it up.... Yum! Ginseng Steamed Fish Ingredients 250 gm Garoupa fish fillet 1 bottle of Essence of Chicken 1 tsp wolfberries 2 slices Ginseng 2 tsp Shaoxing wine Seasalt to taste Method Season the fish fillet with some seasalt, set aside. Steam the essence of chicken with the Ginseng slices for 10 mins.  Add in the wolfberries.  Set aside. Steam the fish fillet for 6 mins.under rapidly boiling water. Remove and pour in the Ginseng mixture.  Drizzle on the wine. Serve immediately with hot rice.

I'm sure many of you Malaysians must have heard of and tasted the acclaimed herbal duck soup noodles from Pun Chun Restaurant in Bidor, Perak.  Recently a friend recommended me a shop also selling the herbal duck soup noodles, wantan noodles, etc right here in Ipoh.  We took the opportunity to pay a visit to Restoran Sin Kooi Yuen @ Taman Rishah,  and tried their signature herbal duck soup noodles.  If you're not a fan of duck meat, you can opt for herbal chicken soup noodles and they also serve siu kow/dumplings, a variety of yong tau fu, fried foo pei, stuffed sengkuang/turnips, curry chicken and BBQ meat noodles and braised chicken feet.  The marvellous thing is that most of them are all homemade by the lady proprietress! You're spoilt for choice looking at what they have to offer! Their signature herbal duck soup served in a ceramic bowl.  Whole drumstick, well marinated and steamed with Chinese herbs, like tong sum, pak kei, red d...

Chicken Adobo is an authentic dish of the Philippines.  Adobo is the Spanish word for  marinade or sauce and therefore Chicken Adobo is  chicken marinated with a combination of soya sauce, vinegar, Bay leaves, crushed peppercorns and garlic.  Not much effort is needed in the preparation for this dish.  To me, this is something quite similar to our soya sauce chicken just that this has vinegar and Bay leaves added to it.  I must agree that it does pair well with plain white rice. Recipe for Chicken Adobo       ( adapted from  'here' with slight modification ) Ingredients                        550 gm free-range chicken cut into bite size 3 pcs dried Bay leaves 1 Tbsp dark soya sauce 1  Tbsp  vinegar 4 cloves crushed garlic 1  tsp sugar or to taste 1 cup water about 2  Tbsp oil...

This is a nutritous soup made from fresh ' Huai Shan ' aka Diosocrea Opposita with pitted red dates, gojiberries and Yuzhu aka Polygonatum root .  'Huai Shan' is the Chinese name while it is  known as Nagaimo in Japanese.  Once the skin of the 'Huai Shan' is peeled off, it's very slimy exposing a mucous substance similar to okra but once it is boiled in water, the mucous substance will disappear and the slices of 'Huai Shan' remains crunchy. Pitted red dates, fresh 'Huai Shan', Gojiberries and Yuzhu.   Recipe for 'Huai Shan' Pork Ribs Soup Ingredients 350 gm pork ribs 350 gm fresh 'Huai Shan' 10 gm gojiberries 40 gm red dates, pitted 30 gm Yuzhu 10 cups of water Seasalt to taste Method Blanch the pork ribes in boiling hot water to remove scum, drain and rinse in running water.  Set aside. Bring to the boil, 10 cups of water and add in the red dates and...