Dang Gui Ground Chicken Stew~

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim - in the name of Allah, most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Assalamualaikum w.b.t. and greetings to my dear readers,

First off, alhamdulillah for I'm still able to keep up with my blog. Secondly, I wish everyone's in the pink of health and for us Muslims, let us be in our highest state of Iman with constant remembrance of our Creator, Allah SWT.

Alright, so the past few days, I've been keeping myself busy with things to get my mind off some matters that ermm, you know.. So anyway, today, I'm going to show how I made my Dang Gui Ground Chicken Stew~ (Chinese+Baba Nyonya Style~)

*Kindly refer to the bottom of this post for more information on Dang Gui. Thank you.

Ingredients:

onions

mushroom (any kind is fine - button, white, shitake, you name it)

chilli

dang gui slices (buy the ready sliced ones) - bout 6/7 pieces if you're cooking 500gm chicken

tomatoes

carrots/potatoes (can use either, they're both awesome - but not both please!!)

ground chicken (don't forget halal ones okay)

pepper
mixed province herbs(optional)

salt

chicken stock

water

oil (obviously) (I use olive+canola oil, it's very healthy compared to other oils~)
*click on image to enlarge

1. Cut your onions, mushrooms, potatoes(cube 'em)/carrots(slice lengthwise), and chilli. Leave the tomatoes first(you can cut them while your stew is being cooked on stove)

2. Heat enough oil in your wok and once it's hot(you'll see little bubbles forming within the oil), place all sliced onions and fry them till the aroma surfaces(normally 1-2 minutes), then add in your chillis and fry again this time cook till your onions turn yellowish; 

add Dang Gui(crush them-place dang guis in your palms and move palms as if your washing your hands to break them into smaller bits); 

then add in mushrooms (mix once) then add enough water(turn heat high now).

Once it boils(bubbles emerge), add your chicken cube(amount to be used depends on how much chicken you're cooking). Mix another minute and place all carrots/potatoes after. If you use potatoes, mix for 3~5 mins, if carrots, mix 1 or 2 minutes. 

Now, add your ground chicken. Mix thoroughly once. Add pepper, salt, and mixed province herbs, then let it boil. (cut your tomatoes now!) Join your tomatoes into the wok. Now, turn heat to medium to high and mix 'em well.

3. Add water occasionally if it evaporated. Just ensure that you have some gravy(a lot is good too! can eat with bread(celup-sedap!!)) cos the dang gui needs to boil for its flavor to surface. Let on "medium to high" heat for 10~15 minutes.


4. VOILA~ Best served with cooked rice ( I had it with spiral macaronis cos I ran out of rice). Yumms~~

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So, what is Dang Gui and what's so special about it?

 

It is a traditional chinese medicine, second only to the world renowned ginseng. It's commonly used to treat women't reproductive health issues and highly recommended to help prevent as well as to treat some forms of cardiovascular diseases. Besides those, it's good for treating inflammation and indigestion. However, the Chinese don't particularly use this herb in their cooking because of these reasons. This Dang gui's just widely used by the Chinese cos we've been using it since God knows when. It's used a lot in our cooking such as making herbal soup/stew, steamed chicken/meat, and etc. 

Where can you get your hands on this thing? Well, Chinatown's the best bet if you're living abroad, but if you're in Malaysia, just go to any chinese medicine shop (yang kedai2 runcit ubat cina tu), they're sure to have it~! It's not so cheap but not too expensive either. Hey, nothing comes for free in this world right. You want goodness, you gotta pay for it~ =)

(p/s: cooking using dang gui enhances the flavour and taste of your cooking, especially when used in soup or when cooking meat/chicken. Not known for fish though - not too sure bout this one. Hmm.)

Salam,

Liana