chicken drum

Stir Fry Watercress with Shredded Chicken

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Stir Fry Watercress with Shredded Chicken

This is a recommendation from one of the home cooks from this cooking Facebook group that I am part of – a savoury version of watercress instead of the usual soup that I would always cook.

Watercress is my second favourite vegetable, second to bitter gourd of course. But I usually would cook it in a soup with fish balls. So this is my first time stir frying the watercress with shredded chicken and wolfberries. The final result is a nice confluence of flavours. The nuttiness of the watercress blends really well with the marinated chicken drum meat and the wolfberries adds a little sweetness to the dish.

Very easy to cook and tastes delicious. Even the wife loves it (and she hates watercress cooked in soup).

Recipe

Ingredients

1 bunch Watercress (the wet market usually sells fresh watercress although NTUC surprises me from time to time)
1 Chicken Drum (I usually get the chicken butcher to de-bone the chicken drum for me. The meat from the chicken drum is more tender and delicious when cooked)
Handful of Wolfberries (these are the dried reddish fruits that is usually available from any chinese medicine shop or NTUC)
4 tbsp Olive Oil (for frying)
1 tbsp Rice Wine (shao xing hua tiao jiu)
2 tsp Oyster Sauce
4 cloves Garlic (rough chop will do)
2 tbsp Kikkoman Soya Sauce
1/2 tsp White Pepper

Method

1. Soak the watercress in water to remove any dirt or debris. Clean out the discolored leaves. Chop the watercress into half after removing the end of the stems.

2. Chop the meat from the chicken drum into small slices. Marinate with white pepper and soya sauce for about 5 minutes.

3. Rough chop the garlic pieces. Then throw them into a heat wok with the oil. Stir fry the garlic pieces until they start to brown. Then add the marinated shredded chicken slices and wolfberries. Stir fry until the chicken starts to change colour.

4. Add the washed watercress into the wok and add a little water. Turn up the heat to high and then cover the lid to allow the vegetable to cook a little more. After about 3 minutes, they should be sufficiently whithered but still bright green (You generally don’t want to overcook the watercress because You want to retain the vitamins in the vegetable).

5. Add the oyster sauce and rice wine mix into the dish and continue to give it a stir fry. After that you may serve.

Bon Appetit!

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Watercress and wolfberries

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Shredded chicken drum slices

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Stir fry the garlic pieces

Stir Fry Chicken

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Stir Fry Chicken

After a brief hiatus from cooking, actually it has been more like writing recipes. I have been cooking just not posting my new dishes. I wanted to try some classic favourites to see if they will turn out just as fabulous as the ones that I find at the restaurants.

For example, I recently tried the three egg spinach, which incidentally is my family’s favourite dish that we would always order when we go PuTien Chinese Restaurant. I tried it the other day and it turned out to be quite alright, just that the century egg I used was the soft centre types which resulted in the soup being quite a murky green.

Anyway, I have been cooking a lot of chicken in rice wine lately and as much as I liked the dish, it was a little too frequent. So today I decided that I would cook it the way I cook frog legs, in sliced ginger and lots of spring onions. Simple and delicious.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Chicken Drum (deboned)
4 stalks of Spring Onions
5 thin slices of Ginger
2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 tbsp Light Soya Sauce
Drizzle of Sesame Seed Oil
Sprinkle of White Pepper

Method

1. Debone the chicken drum (usually I get the chicken butcher to do it for me). Then cut the meat into small bite sized pieces. Marinate with light soya sauce, oyster sauce and white pepper with a light drizzle of sesame seed oil.

2. Mix with your fingers until meat is coated and leave it for about 5 minutes to marinate.

3. Wash and cut the spring onions into 6 cm lengths and split into two portions. Then slice 5 thin slices of ginger.

4. Heat oil in the pan/wok and fry the ginger and first portion of spring onions until fragrant. Then add the lightly marinated chicken meat to stir fry. Keep doing this until the meat is cooked. To test if the meat is cooked – taste it.

5. Add the remaining spring oinions midway of frying the chicken so that the greens will still be green and not all softened. Once cooked serve with steam rice or white porridge. Easy.

Bon Appetit!

White Fungus Huai San and Chicken Soup

White Fungus Huai San and Chicken Soup

My colleague was sharing with me the other day about a soup that she said her toddler son literally polished two bowls of the soup. Yes, according to her, it was that good. Well, I have to try it to believe it. I asked her for the recipe of course and while she told me the portions, my lightning fast mind went to work on how it would be like if I were to cook it.

Unfortunately I was so in deep thought that I totally forgotten the last ingredient that she mentioned. It was some ingredient that enhanced the flavours of chicken and white fungus. I couldn’t be bothered to ask her again and decided that I would make up the third ingredient with something that I was familiar with – huai san – my oh-so-sticky friend.

The tuber is really one of the slimmest ingredient I have ever work with before, so that’s one of the reasons why I rarely employ the use of this ingredient. But I felt white fungus and chicken would do well with huai san for this soup. And so, here we go. My first attempt at this soup.

Oh by the way, I’m case you’re wondering, my wife thought the Oxtail Stew with Carrots that I made the other day was only so-so. Personally, I thought it was fantastic.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 large Chicken Drums (de-boned)
A packet of White Fungus
A tube of Huai San (you can get from NTUC)
A few Chinese Scallops
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Dump the chicken drums (with thigh meat) into the pot. Empty the packet of White Fungus into a bowl of water, let it soak for a while so that it will expand. Then once it is ready, dump it into the pot. (when I first made this soup, I made a newbie mistake of not soaking, and it soaked up all my delicious soup while it was in the thermal cooker!)

2. Clean the huai san and then chop into chunks, then dump it into the pot. Add a few dried scallops and salt to taste. Add boiling water. Turn to high heat for 15 minutes with lid on. Once done, place in thermal cooker to consume 12 hours later.

Bon Appetit!