Friday, June 13, 2008

Chinese Rice Wine Recipes II

P1230426
Rice wine chicken with wheat flour thread noodles (mi suah)

Okay, here's two more ways to cook yellow rice wine. The most famous rice wine dish is of course, huang jiu ji or yellow wine chicken. Eaten by (Chinese) nursing mothers as a nutritious and fortifying soup for 30 days after childbirth, this soupy dish is easy to cook but the results depend on, obviously, how good the wine and the chicken are. Some yellow rice wine have a tarty taste, meaning the fermentation wasn't very complete or successful. Some wines are sweet but are too mild in flavor. I'm told that different batches of wine made by the same person differ in quality depending on many factors such as the type and amount of yeast used and type and water content of the glutinous rice. The superstitious older ladies will tell you that to avoid spoilage of their wine, ladies at a certain time of the month should not come near to their jars of fermenting wine. That sounds like one of my ex-colleague who explained that the reason he lost a tennis match was because he wore the wrong socks.

I prefer my rice wine chicken just the way it is named: just yellow rice wine and chicken (and ginger), nothing else. And no wimpy watered-down soup for me, I must have it nearly 100% wine or there's no point in eating it. I want not only taste, smell, but also the effect. Come to my house after we eat rice wine chicken and you'll find us very nice and enjoyable to be with.

Yellow Rice Wine Chicken
1 x 2kg chicken*
200g fresh ginger (400g or more if cooking for nursing moms)
1.5 litres (6 cups) yellow rice wine**
1 1/2 cups water
salt
2 T sesame oil

*For best results, use home-reared chicken.
**This is about 2 full Carlsberg bottles and may seem a lot but most people go for the soup, so it's never enough.

1. Trim the chicken of any fat and thick skin. Chop into small pieces.

2. Heat up a pot, add the sesame oil and add the ginger. Fry in high heat until ginger is lightly browned, about 1 min.

3. Add the chicken and fry another 2 min, turning the pieces to fry evenly. Add 1 1/2 cups water and 2 cups wine, cover and let simmer 30 minutes or longer if using matured home-reared chicken, about 20 to 30 min if using ordinary chicken (not recommended). It really depends on how soft you like your chicken. You can stir it once in a while.

4. Add salt to your taste (I'd only put in 3/4 t) and add all the rest of the wine. Let soup boil 5 min, covered, and turn heat off to let the chicken steep in the wine. When ready to eat, heat soup up again.

For rice wine wheat flour thread noodles, the best thread noodles are from Sibu, Sarawak. Those Sibu noodles are homemade, fresh and extremely fine yet give a beautiful, smooth (not sticky) el dente bite. The commercial thread noodles are too thick and salty and have a stale flavor.

P1210229
Can you see how fresh this chicken was? They look like the nearly-live frogs' legs in Precious Pea's latest post. This was made with my mom's neighbor's chicken. Home-reared and freshly slaughtered chicken cooked with the best yellow rice wine is delicious beyond words. The chicken in the bowl of mi suah below was 'corn-fed' chicken from a supplier but tasted nothing like mom's neighbor's. Getting a chicken from the old lady was like asking for her gold tooth so I guess I have to seriously consider rearing my own chickens.

P1230424
Chicken, fried boiled egg, chinese mushroom, ginger and wheat thread noodles in yellow rice wine chicken soup.

Yellow Rice Wine Thread Noodles

1. Just cook as per yellow rice wine chicken soup but reduce the ginger and wine by half and make the volume of liquid up with chicken stock and add dried chinese mushrooms (soak to soften) alongwith the chicken. Adjust the taste with salt. Hard boil some eggs, shell and fry them in oil until golden all over.

2. Boil about 2-3 litres of water (if you use too little water, you'd have to dip the noodles into another tub of water to wash the starch off so make sure you use at least 2 litres and cook the noodles by individual portions), add a handful of wheat flour thread noodles (remember the noodles will soak up the soup and expand quite a bit so make sure the portion isn't too big) and use a pair of chopsticks to stir well so that the threads do not stick together. Let the noodles cook for about 30 to 40 seconds, scoop up, draining well, and put into a bowl. Place a fried egg on top, pour boiling hot rice wine chicken soup over and ENJOY!

14 comments:

red | hongyi said...

OH.MY.GOODNESS.

THAT LOOKS INCREDIBLE.

Agnes @ rB said...

"Wong Jiu Kai". that's what we always say isn't it. Its really comfort food dish for the people in KK. Really!! My faimily members is always happy seeing this dish on the table. But I nvr had it with mee suah...

Denise ^ ChickyEGG said...

200% sure I m going to make this.
U wait for my BLOG to BLOG about it.

Greg Wee said...

OMG Terri. You sound like Nee - rearing own chickens, planting own herbs, making own moonshine, rearing own cow next?

With the price hike in everything, I think I should seriously consider it too.

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna bug my mom into cooking this for my homecoming next wednesday, along with gallons of Liang Cha. Hee.. That looks fit for royalty. =]

As for the ma you ji here's the outline of the recipe. Try to adjust according to your tastes ok? I just recalled this from memory.

Ma You Ji( sesame chicken )

-half a bird of chicken
-Lots of Dark Sesame Oil
-Old ginger (acc. to how strong you like it)
-Three to four cups of rice wine
-Three tablespoons of Rock sugar
-Some chicken stock

1. Quickly stir fry the chicken with vege or sesame oil just to seal the juices in (not til its fully cooked). Reserve.

2. Heat the wok and sesame oil.(lots and lots of sesame oil) Brown ginger (great for chewing on).

3. Add in chicken pieces and stir fry til almost done.

4. Pour in rice wine and let it evaporate some off. After that put the lid on.(5-8 minutes).You can dilute it with some stock.

5. When its almost done, add sugar and salt to taste.

Sorry I have to post it here. Next time I'll get your e-mail.
Hope its good. ^^ . Or with your cooking, its bound to be good. ^^

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna bug my mom into cooking this for my homecoming next wednesday, along with gallons of Liang Cha. Hee.. That looks fit for royalty. =]

As for the ma you ji here's the outline of the recipe. Try to adjust according to your tastes ok? I just recalled this from memory.

Ma You Ji( sesame chicken )

-half a bird of chicken
-Lots of Dark Sesame Oil
-Old ginger (acc. to how strong you like it)
-Three to four cups of rice wine
-Three tablespoons of Rock sugar
-Some chicken stock

1. Quickly stir fry the chicken with vege or sesame oil just to seal the juices in (not til its fully cooked). Reserve.

2. Heat the wok and sesame oil.(lots and lots of sesame oil) Brown ginger (great for chewing on).

3. Add in chicken pieces and stir fry til almost done.

4. Pour in rice wine and let it evaporate some off. After that put the lid on.(5-8 minutes).You can dilute it with some stock.

5. When its almost done, add sugar and salt to taste.

Sorry I have to post it here. Next time I'll get your e-mail.
Hope its good. ^^ . Or with your cooking, its bound to be good. ^^

Moodie Foodie said...

Rice wine..arghargh *homer impersonation* This is too good. I will nag my mum into making this when I go back. Hehe

Terri: There are packaged daifuku in the asian supermarkets. SOme with green tea/red bean/black sesame fillings; others are filled with ice cream. And it's just fantastic coz the glutinous rice on the outside has just the right texture and consistency...mmm...

Terri @ A Daily Obsession said...

yi: so u shd come back.now. what's keeping u there??

agnes:yes, this IS comfort food :)

lily: never had it??

denise: waiting for ur post.

gregwee:er maybe goats instead of cows? cannot outdo nee lah..but i really think it's time we all grow some veg, to alleviate the food problems n reduce the country's depenence on food imports.

frequent reader: hey, thanks for the recipe! it's nearly the same as huang jiji except there's more wine?

moodie: lucky u. hey u know tt MAS has an offer, one way from Perth to KL @RM149 only, n lony for the immediate 3 month period ??

Anonymous said...

I can smell it and taste it.. almost. I want, I want.

Raina

LianneK said...

what a gorgoeous recipe and your pics awesome! I would loveeee to try make this but alas, no chinese rice wine here, so ah, I can only salivate this post :-(

Greg Wee said...

I can only admire this spirit of housewife self-sufficiency. But I fear to come home one day from work & find that there's a chicken/pig/cow farm & an alchohol factory at the back of the house.

But on behalf of all husbands, we can feel the love.

Jackie Chang said...

This does look good. We couldn't find any drinking-quality Chinese Rice Wine in our state (Oregon) so we began importing it ourselves. You can buy it at our website:
ChineseRiceWine(dot)com. I strongly recommend not using the nasty stuff at most grocery stores as they are filled with salt (as much as 15%!), and use wine that has been matured less than 1 year. This is straight from Shaoxing...the Napa Valley of Asia!

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Unknown said...

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