Saturday, October 23, 2010

Wrap-turous Emperor Chicken


















I have invited the ' wild boar  ' to be my guest writer again for I know he enjoys sharing his cooking adventures with all of you. Well...he did cook something great on my birthday...a special treat for me   :)  I would like him to share his cooking adventure with you and I happily gave him a space to rant on as a reward for taking the trouble to cook something nice for me .   (We didn't paint the town red for my two Piggies were not around to celebrate with us )  Have fun reading on and discover for yourself what the  ' wild boar ' has to rant about this dish :p

Rantings of the Wild Boar ....

Okay , lets start off with a little history, the wild boar (that’s yours truly) is only exactly half a century young and from these precious years I have shared 30years of it with my other half side of bacon (wifey) . So that means I have celebrated 30 times her birthday , each with something very meaningful….hopefully that is.

So for this 30th time I decided to take the afternoon off after lunch from my busy schedule to prepare a dish which is I shall aptly name The Emperor’s Devotion, ahem ahem its nice to be an imaginary emperor once in a while instead of a wild boar. There is always a quick fix in life with all the instant products you can lay your hands on but this has to be that little bit special …. No Quick Fix from Instant Products this time.




















So I popped in to my favourite Chinese medicine shop of mine to pick up a specially prepared concoction which is their personalise version of the Emperor’s Chicken Soup Mix.. What’s so special you may ask, yes its different because you get to sit down with your Herbalist and discuss on the fragrance you like or detest. For example too much Dong Quai, ahem, is not good for men please dun ask me here, we may have minors reading this article haha. Some may not like too much of it as it can mask other flavours too strongly. Well, to cut a long story short the guy pick up various ingredients and to this I added a small bit of Ginseng and that’s just a some shavings from the precious root. This was all ground up into a lovely smelling mix I guess about 30g in all.

Earlier in the week I had managed to buy some HDPE plastic wrap and a roll of aluminium foil as this is required to wrap up the 2 whole chicken legs I bought from the supermarket. Just a quick note DO NOT USE ANY OTHER PLASTIC as it will not take the heat in the steamer and will leech out dangerous chemicals.

Trim off all the excess fats and some loose skin from this two whole chicken legs and pat dry with a paper towel. Sprinkle this herbal powdered mix lovingly over the legs and you may add a sprinkling of salt, add some ginger shreds . You need to wrap the chicken up in the HDPE wrapper and twist it tight. Repeat with the alumininium wrap to completely seal the flavour in. Put in steamer for about one and half hours on low heat after the steamer starts to steam up. That’s about it simple nice and nutritious !




















The Ingredients :

  1. Herbal Mix from your Chinese Herbalist (specify Emperor Chicken)
  2. Add some Ginseng if you wish
  3. About a tablespoon of shredded ginger
  4. 2 segments of garlic , about the size of a teaspoon only
  5. A bit of salt ( you may add more to taste later on  )
  6. A bunch of Cilantro Leaves

The Results ?

I believe the pictures included will complete the story . Upon opening the wrappers you will need to quickly bathe the chicken with the plentiful gravy in order to mix the ground herbs into the soup. You will be surprised that no additional water was added to the two whole legs and the juices were naturally extracted during the cooking process .The juicy meat deeply infused with lovely flavours from the herbs I will not be able to describe here, you must try it out yourself.


















After a lovely dinner, before I tuck her in to bed I served her ‘dessert’  as she usually sleeps very soundly after  my ‘dessert’. I will not describe what’s for dessert ….. oh okay okay if you must know …. Spell it backwards please first word then second word    SAVIHC LAGER.

Oh by the way, I was served the best birthday cake she baked for herself , nicely topped up with Ferrero Rocher which happens to be my favourite.


Thank you ,till the next upcoming episode .

The Wild Boar.  
        





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30 comments:

  1. It looks delicious and congrats for celebrating 30 birthdays for half bacon :)

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  2. Haha... whoa, Elin, your wild boar is very naughty! haha.... Luckly, you show the picture. haha.... Aiyoyo....
    Kristy

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  3. Elin, Wildboar...you two are born to be together! And congratulation for having celebrated 30 birthdays together...and many more to come!
    The chicken looks crazily delicious!

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  4. Elin,
    May I ask, is there dong guai in this recipe?
    I need to abstain from this herb for the moment.

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  5. Zurin....:) thanks!

    Kristy...he is 'wild boar '...the naughty one :)

    Angie....thanks, hopefully more to come...the chicken is a delish ! Steamed with full of love :p

    Wendy.....yes, there is dong guai in it but you can ask the herbalist to omit it but then it won't taste that great if the dong guai is not in the recipe :)

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  6. Elin, congrats on celebrated 30th birthday together and you have a daring husband, so sweet.

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  7. Hahaha! was so shocked! thought your husband is V funny!
    Sounds like it was a wonderful meal!
    Hang on! 30 birthdays?!? but...but...you're only 25!!?! ;0)

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  8. You sound like you are having too much fun there!! lets hope your wild boar never gets too much Dong quai!

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  9. Looks absolutely yummy - fit for an empress! LOL!!! Ohhhhh....how much Chivas did you two have? Wah...the kids not at home, honeymoon lah hor??? Wink! Wink!!!!

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  10. Wow, it's very rare that the Emperor will cook for the Emperess, but then Birthday girl is the sure winner! Lucky you, your hubby can cook and pen!

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  11. gosh..i can practically imagine the nice aroma already

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  12. I love this type of herbal chicken. You are lucky to have him cooked for you :)

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  13. Jess....thanks. Wild boar can cook better than me :p but I won't let him cook only on occasions :p coz he will mess up my kitchen and I have to clean up after him :p

    Plum Leaf...hahaha yup 25th every year :p he is funny alright. The only clown in the family !

    Chef Dennis...hahaha you got it! nay he is smart...little dong guai for the aroma rather than for their nutritious value or he will suffer lol!

    Arthur...we had 4 years of honeymoon ...enough ! now can't wait for my gal to be back :) which is soon and Chivas...just two packs only ...good sleep after that lol!

    Cheah...birthday person in the Piggy clan are treated like a Emperor or Emperess for the day ! no nid to do work ! and given free dinner too :p

    Kathy...yup, it was a wonderful dish...just nice for the two of us. I salute the wild boar. It turned out delicious ! To make him happy I had a big portion of rice !

    Ellie...I agree that this herbal chicken wrap up with the HDPE plastic and foil , steamed for 1.5 hours truly made the chicken taste awesome. I salute wild boar..he can cook! :p

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  14. aww so sweet, I wish my hubs would cook for me!

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  15. Was looking for jellyfish recipe and came across yours in this website:
    http://en.petitchef.com/recipes/cold-jellyfish-salad-fid-360537
    Another of your blogs or somebody curi your recipe?

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  16. Ann....when your ' wild boar ' :p reached my wild boar's age I am sure he will cook for you too...special dishes..so now he goes on a makan spree first and analyse how to cook your favourite dish :)

    Arthur....I joined as a member of Petitchef so they will put all my recipes there each time I update my post...I agreed to them using my recipes and this will help to channel traffic to my blog :p

    Thanks for your concern. Oh btw my friend who just came back for New Zealand told me that cod fish is very cheap there. $12 (NZ) per Kilo :) She cooked cod fish most of the days she was there :)

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  17. I don't think mine will cook for me too. :(
    Lucky Elin!

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  18. Little Inbox....haha but no one say that wild boar is the lucky one ! :) Don't worry the time will come too for you when your other half will put on the apron and cook a special dish for you and when you have to clean up after him, you will wish you had the apron on and not him :p

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  19. Hi Elin,

    The chicken is so tempting..:)

    Dr.Sameena@

    www.myeasytocookrecipes.blogspot.com

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  20. what a lovely wild boar!!and even willing to write for your blog..i'm sure both of you had a very lovely evening together..the chicken, the chivas..i'm sure he was a very romantic guy when he was young...oops..or shouldnt use 'was'..he must be a very romantic fella!

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  21. Congrats! No better way to celebrate than with a fantastic meal.

    Bravo!

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  22. Woohoo! Fabulous way to celebrate :-)

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  23. Dr. Sameena...thanks for dropping by:)

    Lena...he never changed since the day I knew him :) he is like me...thinks he is 25 every year that is why we matched in our thinking lol!

    Lazaro & Emily...thanks and yup food brings people closer :)

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  24. Yup...my daughter eats cod and salmon ever so often there. I told her to eat as much as she can...as once she gets back here, no more for her. Too expensive. LOL!!!

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  25. Arthur...you are right ,ask Melissa to eat often. Healthy fish and it is so cheap over there. Heaven for us if we live there too * wink

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  26. Awww ... Elin, that's so sweet of your hubby! He's darn funny, too! Young at heart, too, perhaps? LOL!

    Happy celebrating 30 birthdays together. A good relationship doesn't come easy. =)

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  27. Hi Pei-Lin....thank you :) Wild boar is darn funny at times but he is sure nice :)

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  28. What a lovely post, story and all. And sooo sweet...awww, you're so lucky. Looks delicious. I'm going to try that out using a baking bag instead of the HDPE plastic. Should work the same?

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  29. Ping...yes, I have had good results using oven bags or baking bags from Reynolds or similar as these comes wif a nylon tie to seal in the flavors too .
    cheers,
    wild boar

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  30. Hi Elin

    May i know what is HDPE plastic and where can i get it.

    Thanks
    Shirley

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