Ben made this Steamed Chicken with Chicken Essence for dinner. I love this kind of healthy dish.

He learned how to make this dish from a youtube channel that he subscribed; Cooking Ah Pa. He is not a professional chef but the recipes he makes are just the comfort food that we enjoy. Ben is his disciple.

He likes his recipe because it does not involved very precise measurement. A little of this and a little that.

For this recipe, we used:

• 2 chicken legs, trimmed fat and cut into drum sticks and thigh
• About 10 dried shiitake mushrooms, re-hydrated in 2 cups of water, reserved soaking liquid, remove stem and cut into halves
• 2 inches of ginger, thinly sliced into match sticks
• About 10 red dates, cut into halves lengthwise, removed seeds
• About half a napa cabbage, cut into 2 inches pieces
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce or soy sauce
• 1 to 2 bottles of chicken essence
• 1 tablespoon Goji berries (soaked)
• Salt to taste

Instructions:

• Place Napa cabbages at the bottom of a steaming plate (use a deep one as there will be quite a lot of liquid)
• Top with chicken pieces.
• Line the side with shiitake mushrooms
• Top with ginger slices and red dates
• Drizzle with chicken essence
• Add mushroom soaking liquid
• Season with fish sauce or soy sauce, salt to taste
• Steamed for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken (lesser time if you chop the chicken to small pieces)
• Garnish with soaked Goji berries

This dish is great with steamed rice. It is particularly warming on cold days.

The soul of this dish is the chicken essence. You can find chicken essence in Chinese herbal shop. I bought the above for about CAD22 for 6 bottles.