Steamed Chinese Herbal Chicken (with Dang Gui) 蒸药材鸡 - learn the herbs, simple & easy to make recipe

Today I'm going to cook a very simple steamed Chinese herbal chicken. You probably have tried it before at some Chinese restaurants or you have seen those herbal packs in some Asian groceries. However, apart from tasting good, do you know what herbs are in the recipe? Do you know what are those herbs for? And do you know whether those herbs suit you? There are a variety of recipes on the internet or in YouTube channel. So today I'm going to just give you a very simple recipe and easy to make and I will go through each herbs with you very quickly so you know what to include and what to exclude in the recipe that suits you and your family. If you don't feel like learning the Chinese herbs and just would like to see me cooking, you can go to the description box below to look for the time stamp for the cooking sessions. However, I would like to recommend you just to listen me to just a little bit more because there's a few precautions for the dang gui which is a Chinese herb that is included in this recipe. Chinese herbal chicken is a tonic dish. Most of the herbs included in this recipe are Chinese herbal tonics. So the best time to take this dish is during winter time which I already explained in an episode called Winter Wellness. You can see the link above for the episode. You still can take this dish during other seasons or if you live in tropical country, you can take it too. However, it's also depending on your overall health and body types. Let me show you quickly what herbs are included in this recipe. Angelica root, dang gui or dong gui, dang shen, red dates, yu zhu and goji berries. So this dish is good for people who feel tired, lack of energy, has pale face or pale lips. It is kind of pick-me-up dish. It will give you just a little bit of the boost. However, in today's world, most of us think that we feel tired all the time anyway, isn't it? But this dish doesn't necessarily mean that it suits for every one of us. If you have heat signs such as sore throat, dry and smelly stools, feeling hot often or have red swollen pimples, this sign usually means that you are a bit heaty. Then this dish is not suitable for you because it may worsen those symptoms. One important point is if you have common cold, then please don't take this dish during that period because we don't recommend taking tonics when you are sick. Okay, now I want to show you the herbs. The first is the dang gui which is the one that I love but yet also the one that I'm most concerned. So let's have a look. This is the dang gui. You might be able to see it here. It has the head and it also has the tail. The head usually is more as a tonic and the tail actually we say will move the blood. And because of this, you need to be quite careful. People who are taking blood thinner, especially warfarin, you cannot take dang gui, okay? And if you actually have blood pressure problem or heart disease, I would still prefer you to only take it if you are supervised by your Chinese medicine practitioner. The other thing is if you are pregnant, do not take it on your own unless it's supervised. For female, if you have very heavy menstrual blood or very prolonged menstrual blood, then don't take it during those times. You can take it after when your period is completely gone because you lost a lot of blood. Then this is actually good to take it after your period. Of course, if you have those period problem, best check with your GP because I also want to make sure that you don't have anemia if the heavy period or any other underlying disease. I know I'm being extremely cautious here simply because I'm a Chinese medicine practitioner and a pharmacist. So I want it to be safe when you use this herb. For all those issues I just mentioned, please don't put this dang gui in the recipe. Take it out and all the rest of the herbal ingredients when they combine, they are already quite tasty. It already tastes very good. Next, we have the dang shen. Dang shen is a cheaper version of the qi tonic like the ginseng. I like to use it a little bit more because first, it's a bit more affordable and it smells really good too. Secondly, dang shen is neutral. Generally speaking, most of us can take it. The next one is the yu zhu. Yu zhu is a yin tonic. One thing slightly different from the rest, yu zhu is actually slightly cold. That's why when this formula is combined together, you have something slightly cold to balance this out a little bit. Yu zhu is famous for people who feel dry throat or feeling thirsty. This is to nourish the yin. The other two which we have are the red dates and the goji berries. This is probably more well-known or common. The red date is a blood tonic. It's also good to tonify our qi. This is warming. Goji berries are already explained in another episode. You can see the link above. It's good for the eye. It's also a yin tonic. It's quite neutral. Okay then. That's my quick explanation of the herbal ingredients. Now, we're going to start cooking. Okay, let's start cooking. The recipe will display on the screen. The first thing you need to do is actually to marinate the chicken. This is the Shaoxing wine or the Chinese cooking wine. A little bit of the soy sauce. This is a bit of the oyster sauce. A small amount of salt and a bit of pepper. You can use black pepper or white pepper. You can use your hand. It's more even with the marination. After you cook the chicken with all the marinade, just let it sit aside for at least half an hour or so. Ideally, the longer you marinate, the taste will be a bit better. Next, we're going to prepare the herbs. I'm going to show you a little trick because a lot of people, they probably just dump this one on top of the chicken and steam it together. I find that when the herbs are dry, the flavors are quite sealed. I'm going to cook the herbs in the water for about five to ten minutes or so. Just let the flavor open up and create a small amount of sauce and then pour it on top later. Let's just start doing it. Just one glass of water or so. I'm just going to let it boil. You can see the water. It's boiling now. Turn it down a little bit and then you add your tang shen and yu zhu. That's the dang gui and the red dates. Stir a little bit. With the goji berries, you don't have to add it in now. It's up to you because I find that goji berries, the flavor comes out quite easily. You can add it to the end. Cook the sauce for about five to ten minutes or so until you smell the fragrance. It's already five to ten minutes or so. The flavor is already quite strong. Let's start preparing it. Just put the Chinese medicine on top and I'll pour a bit of sauce in and don't forget I also have some ginger. Put them in and continue with my herbs. If you have some black fungus at home, you can also put it on top. I don't have it at the moment. Don't forget your goji berry and to enhance the flavor, I put the roots of the spring onion so give it a bit of flavor and also some clorender roots. This dish should be quite sweet already because of the goji berries. The red dates are sweet. In Chinese cooking, sometimes we like to have just a small pinch of sugar. It will kind of balance it out with the saltiness too. Your chicken is all garnished and look at the color. It's so beautiful. It's up to you how you want to steam it. Someone just put it on the steamer but for me, I just would like to cover it just very gently. It doesn't have to be totally sealed in aluminum foil so it kind of keeps the flavor. This is my traditional steamer pot. I just put a little ring there and have this little clipper. I'm gonna put it in very carefully. Okay, you let the water fully boil and then turn it down to medium and then you let it steam for about 30 to 45 minutes. Okay, just take it out very carefully. Let's have a look. Just be very careful because the steam is strong. It smells really good. So, this is the final touch. Sesame oil. Just a few drops. More garnishes. The spring onion. These are some of the coriander. It all looks very beautiful. This formula is actually quite versatile. If you don't like chicken, you can steam it with fish. If you are a vegetarian, you can buy a variety of mushroom and steam it for probably 20 minutes or so. With this dish, you can eat it with anything. I just have some rice and I also made some watercress herbal soup already. So, it's kind of go together. One slightly warming, one is a little bit cooling. So, that will be a good meal. The flavor is really good. I also like the wine taste in there but if you don't like the Chinese wine, you don't have to put it in. Of course, this is a herbal dish. It does have the Chinese herb taste. I hope you will like it. It's a slightly different flavor profile compared to a lot of western dishes. Here in Asia, this is a very common dish. As you can see, the chicken is already quite soft. Oops, already dropped. Let me give it a try. If you find this video helpful and really enjoy learning some new tricks on how to cook and how I do the herbal formulations of the recipe, don't forget to subscribe. That's all for me for today. See you next time. Thank you. Bye.