Stewed Chicken in Rose Wine Soy Sauce

Look at the awesome colour of the chicken legs … again, this is a Chinese stew and normally would be chopped up into bite sized pieces and served up as one of the dishes around the table with rice for dinner/lunch …but here, Hubby & I had it as our main course just the way it is …a tad saltier than I like it so I know better now to use less soy sauce if we are going to dine the Western style than the Chinese style with rice … would have been perfect if it was eaten with rice to soak up the sauce!

The amount of spices used in this dish is unbelievable and it all blended so well and the taste of the sauce and chicken is simply out of this world … definitely a MUST-TRY recipe if you hadn’t made this before 😉

The spices …… top from left to right and clockwise … ‘luo han kuo’ (aka Buddha’s Fruit/Monk’s Fruit); red distilled grains; ‘dan gui’ (aka dong quai/angelica sinensis); ‘gan chao’ (Chinese liquorice roots); cinnamon, ‘chao guo’; cloves; star anise; dried tangerine peel (in the center)

RECIPE

Ingredients:

I whole chicken (I used 6 whole chicken legs instead)

4 Tbsp Chinese rose wine

1 Tbsp red distilled grains

1000 – 1500ml water

500 – 1000ml light soy sauce

Spices:

5 slices “gan chao” (Chinese liquorice)

1pc dried tangerine peel

5 start anise

½ “luo han guo”

1 “chao guo”

10 cloves

1″ cinnamon stick

3 slices “dang gui”

Seasoning:

200ml light soy sauce

200g rock sugar

 Method:

• Blanch chicken in boiling water, drain well and set aside
• Boil seasoning in a pot until sugar is completely dissolved or until the soy sauce is slightly thickened, remove from heat and set aside
• To make the stewing stock, boil the water and light soy sauce in a deep pot until boiling … add in all the spices and red distilled grains and continue to boil for 5 minutes …blend in the thickened seasoning and rose wine and bring stock back to the boil
• Place the chicken in the the stock ….bring to the boil and then continue to stew, covered, over a low heat for 10 minutes
• Remove from heat, leave the chicken to soak in the stock for further 20 minutes or until the flavour has been absorbed and the chicken is cooked through
• Dish up and drained … chop into bit-sized pieces and serve hot with rice

Braised Duck with Ginger & Reddish Cheese

This is one of my all time favourite duck recipe … Braised Duck with Ginger & Reddish Cheese …. a Chinese recipe and normally would be served up with rice but here, we dined the Western-style … just the braised duck with some Stir-Fried Soya Bean Sprouts as the main for our dinner 😉

some of the ingredients …. from top right clockwise … fresh ginger, dried chillies, reddish cheese, salted/fermented bean paste ..what’s missing here is the star anise which I added later on!

RECIPE

Ingredients:

1 whole duck (1kg), chopped into 8 – 10 pieces 

300g young ginger, sliced

2 Tbsp chopped garlic

1½pcs reddish cheese

3 Tbsp salted/fermented bean paste

3 star anise

2 – 3 dried chillies, optional

1 Tbsp Shaoxing wine

1,500ml water

Method:

• Heat up 3 Tbsp oil in a pre-heated wok ….sauté ginger, chopped garlic, reddish cheese, dried chillies and salted/fermented bean paste until fragrant
• Add in duck, star anise and Shaoxing wine …stir fry over low heat until aromatic
• Pour in water, bring to a boil then braise the duck, covered, over low heat for approximately 1 hour or until the duck is tender  and sauce has thicken 
• Dish out and serve hot with rice or dine the way we did … Western-style … just the duck with some Stir Fried Soya Bean Sprouts