Ginseng Chicken Soup, Samgyetang [삼계탕]

These days, I was dead-tired. So, I want to improve my health by taking tonics.

 

In Korea, when people want to build up their health, usually they choose SamGyeTang which is the healthiest way to cook chicken.

 

Small, young chicken is stuffed with sweet rice, ginseng, Korean dates and other medicinal herbs, and boiled to perfection.

 

Usually a whole chicken is served for one person.

SamGyeTang is believed to be a health food that revitalizes the body and boosts the immune system.

 

 

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Ingredients

Chicken,  water, garlic clove, Korean date, green onion, chili, bay leaves, ginkgo nut, sweet rice, ginseng, salt, black pepper

 

 

Provide a recipe for the soup

 

1. Soak sweet rice  & Wash chicken

Wash 1 cup of sweet rice and soak in water for 40 min and leave it in a strainer for at least 10 min to drain water.

Wash the chicken inside and out thoroughly under running water. Cuff off the tail and fats.

 

2. Onion&bay leaves Water

Add onion, bay leaves, black pepper,  clove and 12 cups of water in a pot and bring it to boil. When boiling, lower the heat to medium and simmer it for 20 min then remove onion and bay leaves.



 

 

3. Prepare chicken & Stuff chicken

While simmering the onion water, stuff the chicken. Make slits on the outer skin of inner thigh (to be used to keep legs crossed). You can also use kitchen string to tie the legs instead.

If you don't have kitchen string, you can use photato bag string!

Stuff EACH chicken cavity with ½ cup of rice, ginseng, date, cloves of garlic and ginkgo nut.

4. Boil Stuffed Chicken
Place the stuffed chicken, whole garlic, date, green onion and chili in onion water and boil with a lid on high heat for 20 min. Make sure most of the chicken is submerged in water when you start boiling the chicken. Add more water if needed. Skim off foams.


 Then, lower the heat to medium to simmer with a lid for another 20 min.





 

 

5. Serve

When the soup turns milky white, turn off the heat. Add ½ to 1 tablespoon of salt (taste and add gradually), ½ teaspoon of black pepper to the broth. Serve in a large bowl. Enjoy!

 

It taste is a little bit oilly and has much chicken flavor. Taste is similar to Canadian chicken stock. Smell is like gravy sauce and medicinal herbs.

I think this blog assignment is successed, also I learned about Samgyetang recipe.

Next time, I will use medicinal herbs. I knew medicinal herbs smell and their effeciveness with this as a momentum.

After eat Samgyetang, you can use leftove for Chicken rice porridge.

 

Sweet Rice Drink(Sikhye) Recipe!!

Today~ I will introduce Korean traditional yummy drink. Its name is Sikhye(sweet rice dink).

Sadly, these days, it is hard to find real home made Sikhye anymore.

If you ever tasted the canned Sikhye that is available in most Korean markets worldwide.

 – I am so sorry… that is really NOT anything close to what the real one tastes like.

The canned Sikhye is nothing but sugar water.

The real Sikhye flavors are just not there…

I will show you how you make it the home made Sikhye (since we do use the modern gadget called the “rice cooker”).

BTW, the milled malt barley used here is the same malt used to make beer and bread.

However, when a non-Korean malt barley is used, for some reason, it does not always produce the same effect. Perhaps it’s milled differently or not enough of the needed ingredients are in there.

Servings: 10 cups          Cooking Time: 6~7 hrs          

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cup milled malt barley(yeotkireum)
• 10 cup water
• 1 cup cooked short grain rice
• 3/4 ~ 1 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)
• cotton for strainer
• ginger (optional) 

Directions

1. Soak the crushed milled malt barley (yeotkireum) in 10 C of warm water for 1 hour. While soaking, massage the malt barley with your hand 2-3 times so that all the good stuff gets loose from the husk.

2.Strain malt barley water, making sure you squeeze out all the good stuff by hand in the strainer before throwing it away.
* Rest the strained malt water for 2~3 hrs and you will see white sediments accumulate at the bottom of the bowl.For a clearer sikhye, let it rest 4~5 hrs.

3. Add the top liquid part of the malt barley water to the rice cooker with the cooked rice already in it.

                  6PM   -----------------------Next day------------------->                 1AM

4. Keep the rice + malt barley liquid mixture ‘keep warm’ in the rice cooker for around 7 hrs until about some rice granules rise to the top.

This means the amylase in the malt has been activated in the warm temperature and has transformed the starch in the rice into maltose making the rice lighter and therefore floating to the top. In other word, this is fermentation process.

 

* prepared cutting ginger and making sachet

5. Boil on medium heat for 10 minutes. Skim off any foam while it’s boiling.Taste the sweetness and adjust sugar to taste. Also remember that the drink will taste less sweet when served cold.

And now you have a fabulous sweet, flavorful Korean rice dessert drink for parties and guests.

 

Cool and store this wonderfully sweet and delicious Sikhye in the fridge.

 

Options

• Add couple pieces of sliced ginger to step 5 for additional flavor.

Serving suggestions

• Traditionally, pine nuts, dried jujube sliced thinly are used as garnish.
• You can also use little bit of yuzu syrup  to add a citrus finish before serving.

Extra Stuff

I made lemon tea, formented beet and pickle. It just practiced for fermentation assingment.

I will show you simply.

 

Lemon Tea

 

 

 

 Pickle

 

Formented beet  

 

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