huai san

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!