#ewew cooks Rice (or Yellow) Wine Chicken

I absolutely love Rice (or Yellow) Wine Chicken.  Rice wine is made from glutinous rice and my mom makes a good home brewed rice wine.  For non-alcohol drinkers (like me), glutinous rice wine is actually much sweeter in taste and more tolerable (as it's not as harsh or bitter as alcohol) though I don't think it would appeal much to 'real' drinkers.

 

Funny thing was I hated it when I had to drink this (on an almost daily basis) during my confinement period but it's a different story now.  Unfortunately, this dish seems to appeal more to women than men for some reason (though some women dislike it too)! :D

It's a pretty simple dish to do with just 4 ingredients, so let's get started....

 

Ingredients:

400g chicken (about 12 medium-sized pcs or 1/4 of a chicken)
3 knobs of young ginger
1 - 2 pcs of dried black fungus
1 cup rice wine (home brewed or shop-bought)
1 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp sesame oil

Preparation:

For your preparation....you just need to prep 3 things.  Soak the dried black fungus in water (for at least 1/2 an hr) and shred finely (discard the knotty bits). 

For the ginger, I would cut some into thick slices and shred the balance finely.  This way, I'd have the finely julienned ginger (to eat) and the thick slices (to flavour the broth) which can be discarded so that I don't have to eat too much ginger in one serving.

 

I also like to remove the chicken skin from my chicken so that my soup will not be that oily.  [#Tip: I would use "choi yin kai" (loosely translated as village or "kampong" chicken) for this as the meat tastes better than the normal "yuk kai" (broiler chickens) but is more expensive lah.  According to experts (ie. my chicken seller), the village chicken is slightly bigger than the kampong chicken (although both terms are used interchangeably).  The meat of the village chicken is not as tough, that's why it's the chicken of choice for chicken rice or steaming, but I use it for all my chicken dishes (except chicken curry, that you can use the normal yuk kai).  So, if you happen to eat steamed chicken where the meat is tough, that's probably the smaller kampong chicken.  And then, there's "ma lai kai" (Malay chicken) and "lo kai" (old chicken) which is good for boiling soups.  There's also the black chicken which is the easiest to recognise (unless you're blind)...and that's good for herbal soups.  Aiyah...so many types of chicken, all very confusing, can't recognise which is which, so I just tell my chicken seller what I'm making and he'll give me the "right" chicken ;-D]

 

And, of course, you need the 'star of the show'....the rice wine!  [#Note: Do not be alarmed when you see that my rice wine takes on a darker brown hue as opposed to slightly yellowish (which is the colour when the wine is freshly made).  Rice wine turns to a darker shade of brown (over a period of time) but it can still be used (no worries) and this bottle is more than 6 months old.  I actually like my rice wine in this darker shade (somehow it tastes sweeter and less intense) but presentation-wise, it's not so nice lah.  When I use the rice wine right after it's made, I like to add a drizzle of dark soy just to achieve a darker colour...kekeke!!]

 

Method:

In a small saucepan, fry finely shredded ginger and black fungus in sesame oil for a min.  [#Tip: Frying in sesame oil gives it more fragrance (which I learned from my mother-in-law).] 

 

Add in the chicken pieces and stir-fry for about 2 - 3 mins.

 

Add one and a half cups of water, bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 8 - 10 mins.  [#Tip: The reason I add in water first, as opposed to adding the rice wine, is because I don't want to completely cook off all the alcohol content.]  Season with salt to taste. 

 

At this point, if rice wine is not your thing, you have a nice chicken soup that's infused with ginger flavour....it's good too!

 

When the chicken is cooked through, pour in your 1 cup rice wine and simmer for a further 3 - 4 mins (not too long).  Do not boil the crap out of your broth as the wine flavour tend to disappear from vigorous boiling (much like how the alcohol is burned off when white/red wine sauces are reduced in western cooking).

 

[#Note: I'm using the ratio of 2:3 rice wine to water as I don't like the wine taste to be too strong.  If you like it stronger, you can go with a higher ratio.  Again, I'd like to remind you that yours might taste different because the intensity of the rice wine (made by different sellers) is different.  So, the best way is to start with 1 part water and adjust the amount of rice wine until you reach the flavour that you're happy with.]

 

And here's my bowl of Rice Wine Chicken that is so easy to prepare (if you have rice wine in your pantry) and nutritious at the same time.

Or for those who like it in its original colour, here's one I made previously (when my rice wine was fresh....and yellow) but without the dried black fungus!

 

Serve your Rice Wine Chicken piping hot with some steamed rice or noodles...but know that this will mellow out the intensity of the rice wine taste.  My preference is to just eat it on its own, with no rice and noodles, so that you can taste the boozy goodness in all its glory!

 

Serves 1 - 2 (but I wallop all by myself since no-one likes this)