Ginseng Chicken Soup

Ginseng Chicken Soup is called "Sam Gae Tang" in Korean. Ginseng Chicken Soup is eaten on hottest days during summer season in Korea, believing that the nutrients from the herbs and proteins from the chicken can help nourish your body in summer when one can easily lose appetite and become weak from over sweating. According to the lunar calender, there are three hottest days in summer: one in the beginning of summer, one in the middle, and one towards the end of the summer. Sam gae tang is eaten for lunch on any of these days in Korea. Its ingredients are the ones commonly used in Chinese medicinal purposes: ginseng, and dates along with sweet rice, garlic and chest nuts. The flavor of this soup is really good. It's mild with a strong and concentrated chicken stock with flavors of the herbs.

Ingredients: whole young chicken (gutted), sweet rice, ginseng, dried dates, chestnuts, sliced ginger, several cloves of garlic, green onions


1. First, you need to put sweet rice in water and let it sit for 30 minutes at least until the rice softens up.

2. Take the chicken and broaden its rear for stuffing purpose.

3. Stuff it with the softened sweet rice, chestnuts, whole garlic, sliced gingers, and ginseng. Stuff as much as you can and try to close the opening with big pieces of dates and chestnuts.



4. Close its legs and carefully place it in an earthen bowl.

5. Add water, and add some garlic cloves, ginseng, and dates for flavoring the stock.

6. Place it on a stove and cook initially for 20 minutes in high heat.

Add some more water as the stock evaporates. Make sure you have enough water and your chicken is fully cooked in the first 20 minutes. You can flip the chicken and put it back to its original position.

7. After 20 minutes, put the lid on and turn the heat down to medium. Continue cooking for additional 40-45 minutes.
8. Constantly, open the lid and get rid of cooked blood clots found in foams using a netted spoon. You need to get rid of all these little dirty chunks and make the broth as clear as possible.


This is how clear the broth should be in the end.

9. Cut green onions and throw them onto the soup as garnish and flavoring.
Don't forget to add salt and pepper to the soup as needed. I also use salt and pepper on a side dish for dipping chicken meat. Also, this dish goes great with ginseng ju (ginseng wine) below. Enjoy!

Steamed Spicy Soy Chicken

This Korean steamed spicy soy chicken is called Ahndong Jjimdahk. This is a very traditional dish dating back to Chosun Dynasty. There is a city named Ahndong in Southeastern part of Korea. The city has existed for centuries and it was one of the big cities in Chosun dynasty. In Chosun, hierchical cast system divided societal class between farmers/merchants and noble men called "Sadebu." Ahndong was a segregated region where inside the city wall, wealthy Sadebus lived. At that time Sadebus had superior food culture and recipes which became the backbone of traditional Korean cuisines along with royal cuisines originated from palaces. This steamed spicy soy chicken was cooked for special occasions and usually was served for important guests. This dish is somewhat similar to Dahk Galbi (Korean pan fried spicy chicken barbecue) but what distinguishes this dish is the use of chicken broth with predominant soy sauce base with sweet potato noodles which add a class in presentation and variety of flavor.


1. Prepare the fresh ingredients below: potato, onion, carrot, green onion, Jalapeño, shiitake mushrooms and chicken meat.


2. Boil water (3 cups) in a large pan for boiling chicken meat (roughly amount shown above) and creating chicken stock.

3. Add chicken meat green onions, pinch of salt, and ginger powder.

4. Take the meat out and save the chicken stock which will be added later.


5. Now, you will need to make a sauce using minced 2tsp garlic, pinch of black pepper, 2Tsp oyster sauce, 2 Tsp mirin, 2 Tsp soy sauce, 2 tsp sesame oil, and dried ginger powder.


6. Chop vegetables below including potato, Jalapeños, onion, and carrot.
7. Oil your pan, add all the vegetables and the boiled chicken and lightly stir fry on the pan for 2 minutes. We are adding chicken broth later and will do serious heating so don't worry at this point if the ingredients are not fully cooked.

Add dried red hot chili peppers.

Add the sauce you prepared in step #5.

Add 1 1/2 cup of chicken broth you prepared in step #4.

8. Continue to heat in high heat for 3 minutes and then add sweet potato noodles, onions, and Jalapeños. Stir around and let the noodles cook fully for another 2-3 minutes. The soup will eventually thicken as the noodle is fully cooked.

9. All done.

Enjoy!

Pecking Style Chinese Spicy Chicken Wings

This Pecking style Chinese spicy wings dish is called "Kan Pung Gi", "Kan Pung Ki", "Gan Pung Gi"or "Gan Pong Ki." It is a Chinese dish sold at some Chinese restaurants. It is especially common in Chinese-Korean restaurants. In Korea, there are a lot of Chinese restaurants that use recipes from mainly Pecking or Manchurian region, which also serves the taste of spice loving Koreans. I don't know if the dishes became extra spicier as these Chinese food became culturally assimilated in Korea but some of the dishes are spicy using the dried chili peppers. This dish is definitely an example of that.

First you need to fry some chickens.

1. Pour milk into chicken wings. Milk will get rid of any bloody flavor of chicken and make it taste smooth.

2. Add 2tbsp of minced garlic and sprinkle some black pepper.

3. You let the wings get marinated into milk for 20 minutes.

4. Then drain out the milk, preserving the garlic pieces.

5. Pour 3tbsp of sake (rice wine) into the wings.
6. Sprinkle some smoked paprika powder and ginger powder.

7. Mix it around and you need to put this in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.
8. Now it's time to start making some batter. It won't be much of liquid batter. Instead, add 4:1 ratio of flour and corn starch to the wings and mix them around.

9. Now prepare a container with corn starch.

10. Throw chicken wings into corn starch and let the powder get onto the meat thoroughly. Make sure you do this quickly and throw it into the hot oil for frying while the corn starch is still dry on the outside. Once the chicken soaks up the powder, you will not get a crispy clothing after you deep fry them.


11. Deep fry the wings for the first time. Do not make the oil extremely hot for the first time. You can leave the oil in medium high heat for about 10-15 minutes before deep frying. This way, you get to slowly cook the chickens thoroughly all the way inside for the first time. Take about 10 minutes to cook. It's always a good idea to take a sample to see if it's been fully cooked, though.

Once you take the chickens out, you will have nice and crispy wings. You can still eat the wings at this stage, however, normally chickens are fried for the second time to make sure it gets very crispy. If the chickens are crispy enough for your taste at this stage, and the chickens are fully cooked, you might as well skip second frying.
This is what it looks like after deep frying for the second time.

Have a closer look.

Now let's make the sauce in which you will be stir frying your fried chickens.

12. Finely chop onions, and slice Serrano peppers.

13. Cut off the tip of dried red chili and empty out the seeds. If you cook with seeds, you are assuming the risk of having a hell fire in your mouth.


14. Pour about 2 cups of sake (rice wine).

Heat up for 2 minutes.

15. Add minced garlic and 2 table spoons of chili oil.

16. Add the vegetables you prepared in step 10 and 11.

17. Add about 3 table spoons of soy sauce and 1 table spoon of vinegar.

Sauce is ready.

18. Add the fried chickens into the sauce and soak the chickens in.

19. Add corn starch to thicken up the sauce. Dissolve it in a cold cup of water first.

20. Add green onions and heat for another 1 minute.

Finished!

As for garnish, you can use crushed peanuts of cashews to sprinkle over the chickens. Enjoy!