Three Cup Chicken

by Liv | Jun 2, 2012

Three Cup Chicken

From the first time I heard about three cup chicken I thought it was a Taiwanese dish, but after doing some research I discovered it’s actually a Chinese dish.

Wen Tiansiang was the Duke of Xinguo and famous in Chinese history for his loyalty to the Song Dynasty. He refused Khubilai Khan’s demand for the Song forces to surrender to the Khan invasion, so he suffered for 4 years in a military prison before his execution. He wrote a lot of good poems in the prison and one of his famous quotations is “None since the advent of time have escaped death, may my loyalty forever illuminate the annuals of history.”

This three cup chicken was cooked by a kind prison warden who was also from Jiangxi Province (Wen Tiansiang’s home town is Jiangxi.). He made this dish with limited ingredients; one cup of sweet rice wine, one cup soy sauce and one cup of lard to stew the chicken for Wen Tiansiang before his execution.

In Taiwan, three cup chicken has evolved into one cup of rice wine, one cup of soy sauce and one cup of dark sesame oil. The smell and the taste of this three cup chicken is just divine. In Taiwan, especially the area around Yangming mountain (Yangmingshan) has a lot of hot spring B&B and restaurants. The guests can use hot spring first and then have meal in the restaurant after. One of the more popular dishes is this three cup chicken.

Procedures:

Heat up wok with dark sesame oil and fry the ginger until the ginger dry up.
Add chicken legs to stir fry it until the chicken meat turn into white colour.
Add garlic, chilli and all the seasonings and cover the wok to simmer the chicken for 15~20 minutes until the sauce is dry out.
Add basil to stir fry it before place the chicken into plate to serve.

Three Cup Chicken

Course Main Dish

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

4 chicken legs including thighs, de-bone
10 cloves garlic
6 slices ginger thin
1 chili
1 basil just a handful

Seasonings

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup rice wine
1/2 cup dark sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Heat up wok with dark sesame oil and fry the ginger until the ginger dry up.
Add chicken legs to stir fry it until the chicken meat turn into white colour.
Add garlic, chilli and all the seasonings and cover the wok to simmer the chicken for 15~20 minutes until the sauce has dried out.
Add basil to stir fry it before place the chicken into plate to serve.

Eggs Royale Recipe

by Liv | May 30, 2012

Eggs Royale Recipe

Recently I published a recipe for Salmon Gravlax and promised I would follow this up with a recipe for Eggs Royale, so here it it. Normally for this dish one would use smoked salmon but I couldn’t resist using the salmon gravlax instead to give this classic dish a different taste.

I’ve also been really craving Hollandaise sauce for a really long time but with my pregnancy I couldn’t touch it. Now I finally have a healthy, happy and cute baby it’s time for me to have some of those forbidden foods for pregnant ladies, such as Hollandaise sauce, home made caesar salad dressing, rare steaks, swordfish, tuna, this kind of ocean fish etc etc. So here is my version of Hollandaise sauce and Eggs Royale.

For this blog post I also drew a step-by-step tutorial image for the hollandaise sauce. I’ve been thinking about illustrating some of my recipes for a long time and while the drawing does take up quite a lot of time, I’ve finally started it. It was fun to draw and I’m personally happy with the way everything has turned out. My illustrations could do with some refinement but this is something I will do more of in the future.

Also some updates about Amelia. Amelia is now 11 weeks and 5 days old. Just like everyone says, babies grow up so quick and when I look at her now and photos of her when she was just born, she looks completely different. Amelia is now also communicating with us a lot more. She will talk back (in baby talk of course) if we talk to her, she smiles all the time and she’s now laughing a lot. Whenever she talks to us we will talk back to her in the same language she uses and she absolutely loves it. Chris is also the master of belly raspberries which she absolutely loves.

There’s nothing happier in life than seeing your own baby happy.

So below the photo of the Eggs Royale and procedure image below, there are some new photos of Amelia. Being a parent is an extremely tiring job but as you can see she now has a really cute smile so every time I/we feel tired, frustrated, one little smile and everything is perfectly happy again. We’ve also had some really amazing weather here in Scotland recently (at least by Scottish standards) so we’ve been travelling around a little bit. In my next blog post I’ll share some of these photos.

Eggs Royale Recipe

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 1 people

Ingredients

Ingredients for Hollandaise Sauce

1/2 shallot chop finely
3 large egg yolks
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
5 peppercorns
200 g butter

Ingredients for Eggs Royale

2 duck eggs
2 slices salmon gravlax a few slices
2 English muffins
1 tbsp hollandaise sauce

Instructions

Toast the English muffins and poach 2 duck eggs
Put a few slices of Salmon Gravlax on top of the English muffin and place a poached duck egg on top of it
Place one tablespoon of Hollandaise sauce on top of the poached egg. This dish is now ready to serve.