Pages

Tuesday 21 April 2015

#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)
 

17 comments:

  1. Is the wine sweet? Had this with mee sua at one place at Jalan Pudu. To me, at best, it was just all right...sweet, not like the white or red wines we have here...but I did not like the fact that they used bits of neck, breast meat, chicken liver and all for the soup. Not cheap - RM13.00 a bowl and that was some years ago. Very strong though...must have added a lot - I walked back to my hotel, quite intoxicated! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oopsss!!! It was Alor, not Pudu...
      https://suituapui.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/uptown-girl/

      Delete
    2. Yes, rice wine leans towards sweet, that's why it's called "teem chau" I wouldn't expect a bowl of rice wine chicken to be cheap because a bottle of it costs at least RM15. It usually comes with chopped chicken pieces and not off-cuts like the one you had. For you to get intoxicated, they must have given you a lot of wine in your RM13 bowl. I like mine less intense.

      Delete
  2. I dont eat chicken but i think replacing that with beef or pork would kill me cause of yummines! ahahahahha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, you can replace with other meat especially pork. I'm not sure if it will work with beef though. And thanks for dropping by! :)

      Delete
  3. I love this dish. would order this when i go BKT shop. Didnt get to eat this during confinement

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You wouldn't love it as much if you had to eat it day in and day out during your confinement (like I did) :D

      Delete
  4. Oh la la! I love this ginger and rice wine chicken. It is so so tasty. Why is confinement food so tasty ah? hee..hee.. I was wondering what to cook this weekend and I think I will settle for this!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Confinement food is only tasty when you are not in confinement....trust me! :D :D So, I guess you have a bottle stashed away in your pantry already...hope you enjoy your rice wine chicken this weekend =)

      Delete
  5. I love ginger rice wine chicken too! There is one eatery that I go to that serves this with deep fried eggs inside along with the chicken. Truly fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most women I know love rice wine chicken. I sometimes just cook it with fried eggs too (as it's readily available in the fridge) when I'm too lazy to bother about the chicken....it's great that way too! ;)

      Delete
  6. ooo, i think this one is a bit of an acquired taste for me ... not my fave chinese dish of all time, though your recipe looks genuinely good :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You see what I mean when I say it appeals to women more than men! But I would have thought that it would appeal to you since you're a drinker and your bowl would be really intense...like 90% wine and 10% water! :D But it looks like I was wrong. Instead, I don't drink but I like this!

      Delete
  7. Replies
    1. It is easy if you have a ready bottle of rice wine in your kitchen ;)

      Delete
  8. This is most definitely a woman dish! I've seen some of my male friends have this day in day out too when their wives are on confinement because it is easier to cook 1 type of food than 2 different types. They were all very grumpy on those months...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can understand....I think I was grumpy too when I had to eat the same thing every day! :(

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...