Herbal Chicken aka Begger Chicken

I had put up this begger chicken post in another website under the pen name of Miss Pinky and had decided to put up this post again on Big Boys Kitchen. I strongly feel that this chicken dish is inviting, warm, fantastic, and delicious as it is embedded with full flavour of chinese herbs.

In this chicken dish, I had used nine types of chinese herbs as follow:

Astralagus Root (Huang Qi/Puk Kei)
The pale yellow roots are believed to be good for the treatment of poor blood circulation and fatigue. This roots can be found in Korea and northern Chinese provinces of Shanxi and Gansu.

Codonopsis Root (Dang Shen/Dong Sam)
The root is generally used as a tonic and stimulant reputedly good for the treatment of gonorrhea, blood circulation and gynaecological diseases. It is widely adopted as a respectable substitute for the more expensive ginseng. Codonopsis root can increase the number of red corpuscles and reduce the number of leucocytes in the blood.

Chinese Yam (Shan Yao/Wai San)
These chalk-white silvers are believed to be a tonic for the kidneys and lungs, and are prescribed for diarrhea, diabetes and urinary problems.

Chinese Wolfberries (Gou Qi Zi/Gei Chi)
Both fruit and bark of the plant are used in medicine to improve vision and to adjust renal function. Chinese wolfberries also believed to be remedial for diabetes but paradoxically impart a sweetish flavour to most rich stews and soup.

Lily Bulb Petals (Bai He/Bak Hup)
The bulbs are harvested from July to September, then separated, blanched, dried and bleached in sulphur fumes. Lily bulb petals are believed to be beneficial for an extraordinary range of illness, from pulmory diseases and ulcers to coughs and dry throats.

Chinese Angelica (Dang Gui/Dong Kwai)
Recognised as one of the most effective herbal ingredient for a whole range of gynaecological ailments, taken by woman after childbirth to alleviate pain, lubricate the intestines and prevent haemorrhage.

Longan Flesh (Long Yan Rou/Long Ngan Yok)
Longan literally mean “dragon’s eyes”, is a small, seasonal fruit that comes in bunches. The flesh beneath is sweet, succulent and translucent and holds at its centre a round, dark brown seed; which is how a shelled longan could resemble and eye. Longan is cultivated in china and parts of Indochina. Stock dried longans come in two forms, in their shells with stones intactor ready shelled as lumps of tightly packed longan flesh.

Soloman’s Seal (Yu Zhu/Yok Chok)
Silvers of yellowish roots are good for treatment of ailments related to the pancreas, lungs and throat.

Red Dates (Hong Zao/Hung Cho)
Red dates should be about the size of grapes or smaller, dark maroon in colour and when dried , very wrinkled in appearance, almost like small, gnarled prunes. They are recommended for the restoration of vigour and vitality

All the herbs are boiled for an hour till the flavour is transfered to the soup.

Paper and aluminium foil are used to wrapped the chicken

Here I used a fresh chicken bought from my favourite market located at section 17, Petaling Jaya.

The chicken is stuffed with the cooked herbs and gravy in the cavity, wrapped and baked for 90minutes in the oven.

Ingredients

2pcs Astralagus Roots
2sticks Codonopsis Roots
5pcs Chinese Yam
20gm Chinese Wolfberries
10pcs Lily Bulb Petals
5thin slices Chinese Angelica
30gm Longan Flesh
3pcs Soloman’s Seal
5pcs Red Dates
1 large Chicken
Paper
Aluminium Foil
Salt
Pepper

Boiled all the herbs with 200ml water till concentrate. Add a pinch of salt for taste. Stuff all the cooked herbs and concentrated soup into the cavity of the chicken. Wrapped the chicken with paper and aluminium foil. Baked for 90 minutes.

Stir Fried Chicken with Sweet Basil

Sweet Basil with Chicken

I just love the smell of the sweet basil leaves. It gives such a fragrant and uniquely smell. You can find most Thai dishes consist of this sweet basil leaves. They really add flavour to any dishes. I found this leaves at SS17, Petaling Jaya wet market. They are sold in big bunch at a very reasonable and affordable price.

Usually the sweet basil leaves are used in scrambled egg as to give more flavour to the egg dish. As for myself, I use this sweet basil leaves for a chicken dish

Ingredients
300gm Diced chicken breast
50gm Sweet basil leaves
2bulbs Minced garlic
2tsp Fish Sauce
1Tsp Oyster sauce
1tsp Dark soya sauce
1 Cut chilli
1Tsp Cooking Oil
a pinch White Pepper
a pinch Sugar

Heat up the oil in the pan. When the oil is hot, put in minced garlic and half the amount of sweet basil leaves. Once the gralic is browned, stir in diced chicken. As the diced chicken is getting cooked, pour in fish sauce, oyster sauce and dark soya sauce. Stir fry the dish for few minutes. Once cooked, stir in the sweet basil leaves and cut chilli. Put in the white pepper and sugar. Now you can dish up the dish onto the serving plate.

Hope you will try this dish. It is simple, fast and yet will surprise you guest.

Regards Sid xxx.

Stir Fried Baby Leek Bulbs with Japanese Seaweed Tofu

Baby leeks

It is another weekend morning marketing at my regular wet market at SS17, Petaling Jaya where I stumbled upon a very interesting vegetable, baby leek bulbs. This is the first time that I had seen such unique and interesting, baby leek bulbs and yet do not know what to do with them. An elderly lady who was standing beside me insisted that I should dry stir fried them with tofu to bring out the full flavour of the baby leek bulbs. She also teached me just to use the bulbs and discard the stems. It really sounded interesting and tasty. She taged way with 2kg of this baby leek bulbs as her son loves them. After overwhelming by her lust, I too immediately bought 1kg of this baby leek bulbs. I also picked up a packed of japanese seaweed tofu from the market.

Japanese Seaweed Tofu

The japanese seaweed tofu looks great, not soft and well suitable for stir frying. I had them cut into cubes and deep fried. By doing this I will able to have a crunchy texture of tofu and also easy to stir fry them within seconds.

Deep fried japanese seaweed tofu

Stir Fried Baby Leek Bulbs with Seaweed Tofu

Ingredients

1kg Baby leek bulbs

1 packet Japanese seaweed tofu

2 cloves Garlic

2 teaspoon Oyster sauce

1/2 teaspoon Dark soya sauce

2 tablespoon Corn Oil

Cut the seaweed tofu into cubes and deep fry them till golden brown. Trim off the baby leek bulbs, leaving about 1 inch of the bulb, wash, clean and dry the bulbs. Heat up the pan with corn oil. Once the oil is hot, throw in crushed garlic.Once the garlic start to turn brown and fragrant, throw in the baby leek bulbs and stir fry them for 2-3 mins. Place the deep fried japanese seaweed tofu into the pan and together with oyster sauce and dark soya sauce. Stir fry them for another 1-2 mins and you dish is ready and scoop them up onto your dish.

Freestyle Curry Noodle

Well, I am not sure what got into me yesterday evening after a long day work, I drove myself straight to the Giant supermarket at One-Utama, PJ before reaching my apartment. The only thing that was permanently stucked or plastered in my mind was curry noodle. I guess lately a lot of my fellow food bloggers had been doing write up on this topic.

Churning up a bowl of curry noodle in my kitchen can be a tricky issue as it very time consuming. But due to my starvation for curry noodle, I was willing to take the challenge and make it a reality. I am sure you know that I did if you scroll down to see those pictures that I had captured yesterday.

I could not believe myself that it only took me about less than half an hour to get this dish ready and not only for one person but it was enough to feed more two person, of course myself and Sunny Yaw. He was busy preparing an cake order for a client. To tell you the truth, he is really dead tired because last weekend he had to prepare one hundred gifts, mini wedding cakes for M.E. & R.T.'s wedding.

Anyway theres a secret of achieving this dish in less than half an hour, I bought a packed of chicken curry paste and a curry laksa paste manufacturedby Tean's Gourmet.

Chicken curry and curry laksa paste

Since I had this two pack of paste inhand, it still does not complete the dish. I got to have the topping and the noodle. So I decided to have chicken, tofu "pok", fish paste "yee wat", fresh egg noodle "wan ton noodle" and some greens. Whala...! That would be my creation and I would call it curry noodle freestyle.

Tofu "pok" and fresh egg noodles

fish paste "Yee Wat"

Firstly I create the soup by using the pack of curry laksa paste and milk as to replace coconut milk. This not only really a health issue but just that my kitchen had run out coconut cream. Once the milk is boiled, I put in the tofu "pok" and leave it to boil for 5 mins.

A cooked curry soup with tofu "pok"

Next was to churn up the chicken curry by using cut chicken breast and chicken curry paste. Once ready, I boiled the fish paste "yee wat", the veg and the egg noodle.

Cooked fish paste "yee wat"

Once everything is completed, I put the cooked egg noodles on the the serving bowl, poured in the curry laksa soup, placed the curry chicken on top the egg noodle, placed the tofu "pok" , cooked fish paste and the veg.

Curry noodle for two

Ingredients

1 packet Curry laksa paste

1 packet Chicken curry paste

1 packet Tofu "pok"

2 Fresh Egg Noodles

200gm Diced chicken breast

100gm Fish paste "yee wat"

50gm Fresh greens

1 litre Fresh milk

I am very sure that you will not go wrong with this recipe as it is fast and easy to make. I am for sure you will impress your guest or your love ones. I am defintely sure that you will send them thinking of your cooking twice from now on. For sure you will able to cook and to impress.

Sid xxx