Mee Sua Soup with Dumplings (菠菜饺子汤面)

I needed a quick lunch fix for Edda and me.  Earlier, I made a batch of chicken chive dumplings and freeze it for emergency such as a quick lunch idea and also an alternative for Evy when I didn't cook enough for her school's lunch box.  I checked my pantry and I had one bundle of somen left, just enough for both Edda and myself.  An lunch idea was formed as I remembered the way my mom cooked the somen for me during my confinement.  If you liked to check out my mom version just click under confinement.  It's similar to this except I added the spinach, dumplings, homemade glutinous rice wine and a little this and that.

Ginger Chicken with Homemade Wine

This is a Ginger Chicken with homemade rice wine that mostly consumed by a lady in confinement.  Chinese lady would be in a month of confinement when she gave birth to a baby.  During this month of confinement, she would be giving heaty food to eat.  Lots of ginger, sesame oil, homemade rice wine, red date tea, etc to help heal her body and to make her body strong.  I didn't get to eat the homemade rice wine while in both of my confinements but I did make sure I followed most of the traditional rules and ate lots of ginger and sesame oil.  You can say I am superstitious but I believed in natural Chinese medicine or tradition that passed down through generations.

After a bowl of this, you eat the ginger, wine stock and everything with the rice and you would be sweating afterward.  Wood-ear fungus is high in iron, protein, calcium, vitamins and said to prevent blood clotting and lower cholesterol.  The homemade glutinous rice wine has lots of benefits too.

Lemon Grass Shallots Soup

My mom cooked this soup for me during my confinement month. It left me with good impression as the shallots made the soup sweet and it had a hint of lemon grass. Now, I cooked this soup because I just learned that lemon grass is very good for our general health and anti-cancer. I added ginger just because it is anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory. This soup definitely brings no harm to us so I will be cooking it more often, just for prevention and general health benefit. Best of all, it tasted great. You can eat the shallots with the soup as it will be really soft with a tint of sweetness.

Stir Fried Chicken with DOM

What to do with the leftover Benedictine DOM from the confinement? I know I supposed to drink a little each night before going to bed, but I just never do it. A bottle of this is not cheap at all and I really like the sweet fragrant taste, throwing it away is definitely not an option. So, I used it in cooking! The alcohol content will evaporate during cooking and leave us with the sweet DOM smell. So, instead of using the Chinese cooking wine or Japanese rice wine asked for in a recipe, I just substitute it with DOM. I have used it in making spaghetti sauce too.

Dong Quai Chicken Herbal Soup (當歸汤)

This Angelica soup (當歸汤) or "female ginseng" is widely used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat gynecological ailments, mild anemia, fatigue and high blood pressure. This soup is also cooked for new mom in the last two weeks of confinement. It is also one of my favorite soups and I cook this soup 2-3 times per month. It is best for women to drink this after each menstrual cycle to revitalize. Bonus is this soup is very sweet and delicious.

Tong Sum Chinese Herbal Soup

This is one delicious chicken herbal soup that's good for us. I have been drinking this soup for ages, my mom used to cook this soup for us when we were little. And now I took over the cooking of chicken herbal soups. This is also the soup that I drank during confinement because dang kwai was not allowed in the first two weeks.

Confinement Food - Chicken in DOM Wine

Ingredients:

1 cornish hen
1/2 cup Benedictine DOM
1/4 cup kei chee (medlar seeds)

Method:

Wash and clean cornish hen thoroughly. Add all ingredients into a slowcooker (small size one) and fill the slowcooker half full with hot water. Boil on High for 3 hours. Serve hot!

Note: This soup is quite sweet.

Confinement Food - Egg in Gingers and Sweet Snap Peas

Yeah, I got to have my veggies. But read that leafy greens are cooling to the body and prohibited during confinement. So, the alternative would be snowpeas or sweet snap peas, even french beans is okay. So, here's the easy recipe.

Recipe:

1 large egg, beaten and marinated with soy sauce and white peppers
1/2 cup of shredded gingers
About 5-6 sweet snap peas, cut
Sesame oil

Method:

1. Heat the wok with sesame oil. When hot, add in the shredded gingers and stir-fry until fragrant, add in the snap peas and stir for a while, then pour in the beaten egg. You can flip it omelette style until cooked.

Confinement Drink - Red Date Tea

This is the drink that I had for the whole month instead of water. Other than that I had Milo with milk in the morning and after three weeks cheating with two cups of coffee. :P This tea is simply delicious. I put everything in a slowcooker and let it cooked overnight on low and enjoyed it the next day. I used red dates, black dates, tong sum and dried longan. My slowcooker is the big one so everything I added was based on agaration.

For the complete recipe, click here . Courtesy of Peony and thanks for posting the recipe.

Confinement Food - Pork Knuckle in Black Sweet Vinegar

This is one common confinement must have food. I put the leftover in the refrigerator and trimmed off the fat and had it the next day.

Recipe:

1 pork knuckle
0.5kg old gingers, smashed
4 cups sweet black vinegar
8 cups water

Method:

1. Rub the pork knuckle with salt and wash it.

2. Add the vinegar and water in a big pot, heat until boiling and add in the gingers. When boiled, add in the pork knuckle. Turn the heat to low and let it simmer for a few hours or until the pork knuckle is soften.

Confinement Food - Mee Sua Soup

This is the mee sua soup that I have for lunch most of the times. My mom cooked for me for the first three weeks and I cooked the above myself. It actually pretty delicious.

Recipe:

Sesame oil
Shredded gingers
1 large egg, beaten
Cut sweet snap peas/ snowpeas (optional)
ground pork

Season to taste with soy sauce, salt and sugar.

Method:

1. Heat the wok with sesame oil and when hot, add in the shredded gingers and stir-fry until slightly brown, add in the egg. Stir-fry for a little while and add in the amount of water you want (for soup).

2. When boiled, add in the ground pork (drop it in like meat balls). Boiled until the ground pork balls are cooked, season to taste with the seasoning above.

3. Quickly boil another pan of hot water and drop the dried mee sua to soften. This only takes a second, dish out and place in a bowl. Scoop in the soup and enjoy it immediately.

Ginger Chicken

I assumed every cook knows how to make this easy and delicious dish. I learned how to make this because my mom used to cook this for us when we were children. It is like a comfort food and the house smells great when this is cooking.

This dish is also good for lady in confinement because it uses a lot of gingers and sesame oil.

Featuring one of my home cook dishes.
Ingredients:
~2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, cut into pieces. (Marinate it with a little soy sauce, dark soy sauce and cornstarch for at least 2 hours)
~2 inches of ginger, juliened (you won't eat it if it's in big pieces). Eat your ginger, it's good for you! :P
~1/2 onion, sliced
~Sugar to taste, about 1 tsp.
Seasonings:
Soy sauce (about one round on the wok), dark soy sauce (about 1 tsp.), sesame oil (about 2 tsp.) and about 1/4 cup of water.

Method:
1. Heat up a wok, when smoking, add in some cooking oil. Add in the gingers, give it a quick stir to release the fragrant. Then, add in the chicken pieces. Stir-fry well until chicken is almost cooked. Add in the onion, mix it around and add 1/4 cup of water and let it simmer.
2. Season to taste with some soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar and let it simmer a bit. Switch the stove off and add in some sesame oil. Quick stir and serve on a plate.

Note: For confinement, use sesame oil to cook the ginger and chicken.  Also add wood ear fungus for iron.