Double-boiled Chicken with Dong Guai and Hark Joe

Other than the usual double-boiled chicken with dong guai (angelica), one can add black dates (hark joe) to the concoction. Just simply placed one chicken thigh in a double-boiler or slow cooker. Scatter dates and dong guai all over. Pour in hot water just enough water to cover the thigh. Cook for 3 - 4 hours.


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Chicken with Black Fungus and Lily Buds

I don't have the exact recipe for this. From my experience, fry ginger slices in some sesame oil. Add in the chicken pieces and cook till lightly browned. Next, add in soaked black fungus and lily buds. Pour in just enough water to braise the chicken. Add in some abalone sauce to taste. BTW, if you've noticed, salt is not added in any of the confinement food.


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Dong Sum Soup

Dong Sum (dang shen in Mandarin or codonopsis pilosula) is said to be able to increase blood cells, hence this herb is usually served to new mother every day either boiled as soup or cooked with red dates and drank it like water.

Since I didn't errrmm actually gave birth, technically... I was just fed with soup of dong sum, red dates, kei chi and chicken carcass boiled for 3 hours. Dong sum has a natural sweet taste and this soup can be drank by virtually anyone.




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Chicken and Black Fungus With Wine Soup

No need introduction... this is the standard classic confinement food fare. You can try this even though you're not under confinement, just reduce the amount of ginger and/or wine. Yummy to be eaten with mee sua or noodles.

Chicken and Black Fungus With Glutinous Wine Soup

1 free-range chicken drumstick, cut into pieces
50g shredded ginger
20g black fungus, soaked and shredded
100ml glutinous rice wine (can be replaced with ginger wine)
300ml water
1 tbsp sesame oil

1. Heat sesame oil and add in ginger. Fry until ginger is crispy before adding the black fungus.

2. Add in the chicken pieces, stir-fry till aromatic. Pour in wine and water, bring to boil.

3. Lower the heat and simmer for about 15 mins until chicken is tender. Dish up and serve immediately.

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Stir-Fried Eggplants With Minced Fish

I'm going to post this up today. Something very easy for you to try over the weekend. This is a healthy and fabulous recipe which I've learnt to pre-cooked eggplants with water instead of pre-frying them in oil. Pre-frying in oil caused the eggplants to soak up the oil like sponge.

Roughly following this method from The Best of Patsie Chong - Pregnancy & Confinement recipe book, I fried the fish paste and set aside. Then I heated some oil and stir-fried some garlic till fragrant. Next, I added in the eggplant and stir. Pour in the sauce and add in kei chi and fish paste. Stir and dish up. I did not use cornflour solution since I did not add in much water and it was pretty dry already.

Stir-Fried Eggplants With Minced Fish

(A)
400g
eggplants/brinjal
150g minced fish meat/paste
1 tbsp kei chi (boxthorn/lycium/Chinese wolfberry)
2 tbsp spring onions, diced

(B)
1 tbsp abalone sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 cup broth

cornflour solution

1. Cut eggplants into sections. Put eggplants and 3 tbsp of water in a pot. Cover and cook until steam appears. Remove and set aside.

2. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in wok. Separate fish paste into pieces with spatula. Stir-fry until cooked.

3. Add in eggplants, kei chi and (B). Stir well. Stir in cornflour solution.

4. Sprinkle spring onions. Dish up and serve.

Ref: The Best of Patsie Chong - Pregnancy & Confinement

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Mui Choy Chue Yuk

**Non-Halal**

Mui Choy Chue Yuk (braised mui choy with pork slices) is a favourite dish amongst many of us. Most times they're cooked with pork belly or at times chicken. There are two types of mui choy (a type of preserved vegetable) - salty or sweet. We usually use the sweet one cos they're not exactly sweet per se as the salty one tends to be overly salty.

To prepare the mui choy, one need to rinse the mui choy carefully, going thru the leaves as there may be sands tucked in there. Next soak them for say 30 minutes or more to get rid of the saltiness before chopping them up for usage.

Cooking Mui Choy Chue Yuk is pretty simple. Marinade lean pork strips with some soy sauce, sesame oil and some cornflour. Heat some oil in a wok and fry the pork strips a bit till they're cooked. Add in the mui choy and stir. Pour in some water and adjust seasonings by adding dark soy sauce or abalone sauce (usually it's oyster sauce but since it's confinement food, oyster sauce is omitted). Place the lid on and braise on low heat for 20 mins or until pork and mui choy are tender. Alternatively, this dish can be cooked with chicken meat. For a healthier dish, you can steam them instead.



This is usually how my meal looked like at my parents', very simple. One dish, in this case Mui Choy Chue Yuk; blanched vegetables mixed with some sesame oil and soy sauce; and rice (pictured was 10 grains rice) plus the standard soup.


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Homemade Chicken Essence

One of the nourishing soup I had is Chicken Essence after the nasty episode. Nope, not those straight from the bottle. The homemade style. I drank this during my confinement after giving birth to my boiboi. This soup made me super alert and kept me awake at most times hahaha that I totally banned it!

The process is pretty tedious to me, as usually one have to smash up one whole kampung (free-range) chicken with a pestle, bones and all. Then these are placed on top of an over-turned porcelain bowl inside a double-boiler. Put on the lid and double-boil the smashed chicken for 3 hours. The essence of the chicken will drip under the bowl. Remove the chicken and the bowl gently and drink up the essence.

Note: When you first open the double-boiler lid, you won't see much liquid inside as shown on the left pic. Don't fret, the essense hid underneath the bowl!



Well, that was the usual way of making chicken essence but this method produces a fair bit of oil. What my mom did was to use lean breast meat from 3 (yes THREE!!! That's a freaking whole lot of chickens that we have been eating every other day!) kampung chickens instead. For a bit of variation, a few slices of dong guai (angelica) can be added underneath the bowl.

My colleague had taught me some years back to make this Chicken Essence. He also told me to reserve the cooked chicken and use it the next day to boil soup. We tried that and the soup turned out tasting sweet as he had mentioned.

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Shallots and Lemongrass Soup

During my recovery period, I was sort of on a confinement basis, not overly strict but I was fed with lots of hot soup and tonics to boost my health and keep my body warm. Since I have a heaty body, too much of these goodies landed me in "hot soup" literally a couple of days back. Some how I caught a viral fever then came the cough and sore throat. As if not enough, I'm getting a cold now!

Anyway, I will post up some of the food and soups that I have taken during my recovery, well, just for the records and for those who are interested to know what kinda of food people on confinement take.

One of the soup I drank was this Shallots and Lemongrass Soup. Simply boil a big handful of smashed shallots, a couple sticks of lemongrass, chicken carcass and some white peppercorns for a couple of hours. Drink whilst its hot. This soup induces lots of heat and it's not pleasant in the hot weather. I was perspiring buckets after drinking this!



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