Potato Chicken + Cordycep Soup

I cooked these for dinner last week, and the kitchen was closed after that.  Inspiration-less.  Lols...  Picture above was just a simple chicken dish cooked with potato = Potato Chicken.  Nothing much to this post.  Just something to share. ;)

Ingredients:

Some chicken cut into pieces

Some potato cut into cubes

Some oyster sauce + some dark soy sauce + a little sesame oil + cornflour + little water

Chopped some garlic

A little chinese wine

Methods:

1) Heat wok with a little oil.

2) Saute some chopped garlic till fragrant.

3) Add in the cut chicken pieces and cook for a minute or so.

4) Add in the cubed potato.

5) Drizzled in the sauce mixture.

6) Cook on high heat for a short while till boiling.

7) Reduce heat to low and cover with wok's lid to simmer for while.  Hmm... approx. 10minutes.

8) Remember to stir it every now and then to prevent burn.

9) Last but not least, drizzled in some chinese wine, off the fire, ready to serve. :)

For simple chinese cooking, I usually just go with 'a little' of this, or 'some of that'.  Not sure of the exact amount.  Hahaha... simply only.  Go with the 'feel'... hahaha...  Luckily it turned out pretty yummy. :p

Boiled Chicken Cordyceps soup too.  I remembered grandpa used to boil cordyceps soup for me when I was young for I was an asthmatic + coughfy child.  So I thought this should be good for us too since both of us have been experiencing coughing spell since the recovering of the nasty cold.  Though these are just some cheap cordyceps, well, it's better than none at all... :p  I bought the herbs off the supermarket shelf.  Pre-packed.  Easy peasy! ;)

1) First, scald the kampung chicken (village chicken, small black ones) for awhile in a pot of boiling water.  This is to rid the raw stench (smell) and 'remaining blood' so that the soup we boil later would turned out clear and not choky.  

2) Then, put the scalded chicken into the slow cooker, throw in the herbs (washed) and filled up the pot with water (normal temperature), amount as indicated on the packaging of the herbs.

3) Set cooker to 'high'.  When boiled, switched to 'low' and let it cook for 3-4 hours.  Ready to serve.

4) Salt are optional :)  

  

Besides Kampung Chicken, you can boiled with lean pork meat, normal chicken, or any other meat you prefer (or no meat at all).  I chose Kampung chicken cause I was told they are good for health.  In what ways, I don't know.  Probably less chemicals.  Hahaha....

Tips:

If you are working, you can use the 'auto timer' adapter to boil soup.  You know those plug which you can set when to turn on or off?  Just set your slow cooker on 'low' and your 'auto timer' to on for 4-5 hours. By time you get home from work, you'll have hot yummy nourishing soup waiting for you at home!  :)  So what I usually does is, I'll set the adapter to on at 10am and off at 3pm.  Then on again at 6:30pm for half an hour so that the soup would be hot at dinner time :).  You get what I mean?

These are the expensive cordyceps.  The cheap ones are plummer, rounder and whiter.  Hmm... go zoom in on my soup picture.  You might be able to see some.. lols..

Medicinal uses of Cordyceps:

Replenishes energy, alleviates cough (bingo!), expels phlegm (bingo!), relieves lower back pain and aching joints.

Personal verdict:
I think the soup does help with the coughing.  We cough lesser and almost recovering :)