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Sunday, January 13, 2013

Recipe: Chicken with Chinese rice wine and old ginger

If you're looking for a simple chicken dish you can prepare during the Chinese New Year period, this chicken with Chinese rice wine and old ginger will do the trick. Served with a bowl of rice, this will be a nice, comforting dish after all the feasting from the CNY reunion dinner. 

This is also a hugely popular confinement dish, whereby mothers (post-natal) would eat this for 30 days. This dish is good for expelling wind, helping blood circulation and is good for body recuperation (believed to be able to speed up womb recovery). Not only women love this, men do too - I've heard stories of friend's husbands stealing bites from their wife during their confinement. 


Chinese rice wine is known as 米酒, usually homemade and is golden brown in colour (the shade is similar to honey). If you cannot get hold of Chinese rice wine, you can substitute with ginger wine. For this dish, you can use your choice of chicken meat - we used a combination of both breast and chicken drumstick. Try to use kampung chicken (if making as confinement dish) otherwise any other type of chicken is fine. Personally, we like the sauce to be more concentrated, but if you like more sauce, you can use 100ml water and 250ml of Chinese rice wine. Soy sauce is a no-no during confinement, otherwise you can serve this dish with minced garlic, chilli and soy sauce condiment.




Chicken with chinese rice wine and old ginger
Recipe by Baby Sumo
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves 2-3

Ingredients
400g chicken, cut into chunks (I used a mix of chicken drumstick and breast)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
100g old ginger, julienned
1 shallot, finely chopped
3 tbsp sesame oil
50ml water
150ml Chinese rice wine
1/2 tsp salt

1. In a large wok, heat sesame oil over high heat. Add garlic, shallot and ginger and cook for 2 minutes, until fragrant.




2. Add the chicken and cook for 2 minutes, and the chicken has browned slightly. Add water and cook with cover on for 3 minutes.

3. Then, pour in the Chinese rice wine and place the cover back on and cook for a further 5 minutes (or more depending on how big your chicken chunks are).



4. Season with salt and serve immediately with some garlic with cili padi and soy sauce. Good with rice.



* I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover.

40 comments:

  1. Chicken with Chinese rice wine and old ginger is one of my favourite dishes, my mum used to make her own rice wine, I miss that so much.

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    Replies
    1. You can use ginger wine, can easily get and cook this at home when u need comfort food:)

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  2. I love confinement food and so does my hubby heehee , i remembered my confinement lady cooked this dish fairly often, often alternating between chicken, pork, and pork kidney and liver. Yumm.

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    1. I ate this for 30 days, just alternating between ginger wine and Chinese rice wine. My relatives ask me "not bored ah"? Haha!

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  3. Thanks Huey Yen! Going to come in handy soon :P

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  4. you're killing me!! hunger pangs and jetlag.. must not read ur blog! hah

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  5. wow that looks good... it's been a while since i last ate this dish! :D

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    Replies
    1. I think not many restaurant serve this, right...

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  6. Yours look really tasty! My mother in law made it for me when I had my son, and omg, the alcohol smell was so strong that I couldn't eat it (it was more like a soup, and rice wine was not just 150ml you know). I'm not much of an alcohol drinker (I like sweet cocktails and wine but I only sip) so that was hard. It's time to make it with my own next time!

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    Replies
    1. Yea I know some ppl like to make it strong... but we like to add some water in ours cos I dont like it too strong and I also like drinking the soup. You can try with ginger wine, it tastes slightly milder.

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  7. Tried the one at Jalan Alur, with all the feature articles in the Chinese newspapers stuck all over the stall - don't know the same or not but I did not like it. Couldn't finish even half a bowl. Really strong on the wine that one though - that was the only good part.

    For our local Sibu Foochow ones, we only use ginger, no shallots, no garlic...and traditional Foochow red wine. Use sesame oil too...and add dried shitake, pre-soaked...and wolfberries...if so desired.

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    Replies
    1. Is that what the ladies would eat during confinement in Sibu?

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  8. I really like this. If the wine isn't too strong, I will slurp all the sauce too!

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    Replies
    1. During confinement, my mum would cook the rice wine a little longer to cook off most of the alcohol.

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  9. Looks pretty amazing. We do not use rice wine in our cooking here so that is a very new ingredient.

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    Replies
    1. I think the Chinese use ginger wine and another one called Xiaoxing wine a lot esp for marination.

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  10. tasty-looking! it's kinda nice to imagine that these classic recipes will stand the test of time. if all goes well, your daughter will be making this for her children, and your granddaughters will be making this for their children, and so on :D

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    Replies
    1. This has been around for generations, I think it will stand the test of time. Not only is it good for you, it tastes really nice too!

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  11. Very appetizing ! Love this combo and not for those in confinement only ! lol

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    Replies
    1. We still make it all the time now when we've got the craving.

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  12. Looks very good! I love this dish, my version is slightly different! Most families have their own version, but the end result is always yummy!
    Love this!

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  13. Hi Yen!

    Sesame oil, wine, ginger, ginger and more ginger... that's what I remember... I mean my wiife's confinment...

    ... and I miss the food now...

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  14. Hi Yen,

    Sad that I didn't have this at all after my child birth... I didn't have anyone to cook for me at that time. Nevermind! Will keep this recipe in my mind if anyone need me to cook for their confinement :D

    Zoe

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  15. good morning yen, i can almost smell the aroma of the wine and the ginger here!! more wine pls!! love this dish!

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  16. it is one of my favorite..
    my mum use more dark sauce..

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  17. Yen, this is one of my all time fav dishes, love to cook it esp during winter but I normally skip the cooking wine. Next time should add in some cooking wine.

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  18. one of my favorite confinement food... I ate so much of this when I had my little one... my mother in law still makes this every now and then... just as an excuse to eat it... :D

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  19. I LOVE this dish & have cooked it for my confinement too. I do cook this chicken time to time , even my boys love it . Will try this version of yours! Looks so YUMMY & now I feel like cooking it for lunch , tomorrow! hehehehe

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  20. I sometimes will cook this kind of dish. I like Chinese cooking which uses wine :-p

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  21. I love chicken with chinese wine (any wine in fact)! I must MUST try this out! Thanks for the wonderful recipe! ^^

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  22. Looks good. May I know where to buy Chinese rice wine from supermarket? what brand of the Chinese rice wine? thanks.

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    1. Hi there, usually you cannot get Chinese rice wine at the supermarket. They are usually homemade, I got mine from some friends who made it.

      As a substitute, perhaps u wanna try my ginger wine chicken recipe. See here:
      http://goodyfoodies.blogspot.com/2013/07/recipe-chinese-ginger-wine-chicken.html

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