Spring Recipe - Stir Fried Chicken and Goji Berries
By Vicky Chan of NourishU
Spring Recipes
Spring is the season of new growth, the season of wood and the season of the liver. It is the season of wind and rain and very unstable weather. It marks the beginning of a new growing season including bacteria and viruses. People can easily catch cold/flu and infectious diseases in spring. Wind-injuries can be characterized by rapidly changing and moving symptoms such as a stuffy and runny nose, coughs, fever, body pain, sneezing, and dizziness.
Our livers are most vulnerable to wind-injury in spring. It is important to invigorate the liver by eating warming and pungent food to defend and expel wind evil. Foods that are sweet in nature such as dates, goji-berries, animal's liver and leek can benefit liver health and help to promote liver qi. Sour can nourish liver and promote blood. Salty taste can promote sour.
Spring tonics emphasize on light and healthful foods such as spinach, celery, onion, lettuce, leaf mustard, Chinese yam, wheat, dates, peanuts, onions, cilantro, bamboo shoot and mushrooms. Soybean, bean sprout, egg, and tofu are rich in protein and can promote liver health and healthy growth of tendons.
Chrysanthemum Flower
Chrysanthemum flowers are very effective in lowering liver heat and calming the liver. They can be used as a tea or cook with other ingredients to make soup or entree dishes.
Dandelion
Dandelion is everywhere in spring. It is bitter and sweet in taste, cold in nature, and attributive to liver and stomach channels.
Pick dandelion leaves from your garden or from a wild field where there is no chemical pollution to make a detoxification tea for yourself and your family in spring. It is diuretic, clears damp-heat and toxic material, and benefits liver health. You can repeat this once again in late summer when you see them bloom again. It is the most inexpensive and effect detoxification tea that you can give to your body.
Stir Fried Chicken & Goji Berries
THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS
Benefits the liver and eyes.
INGREDIENTS
- Astragalus (huang qi) 黃耆 - 30 gm
- Goji-berry / Chinese Wolfberry (gou ji zi) 枸杞子 - 15 gm
- Chicken breast - one piece
- Cucumber - one
- Cooking wine - 2 spoonfuls
- Rinse astragalus and put with 2 cups of water in a pot and let it sit for 30 minutes. Then bring water to a boil and lower heat to medium-low to cook down to 1/2 cup of water left. Strain and keep aside.
- Wash and shred chicken and cucumber.
- Season chicken with salt, pepper, cornstarch and 2 to 3 spoons of astragalus water.
- Soak goji-berries for 20 minutes and rinse. Season goji-berries with some astragalus water.
- Warm one spoonful of oil in a wok and stir-fry chicken for a few minutes. Then sprinkle in cooking wine and the rest of the astragalus water, and stir.
- Add cucumber and stir for a few more minutes, then add wolfberry and stir for a couple of minutes more and is done.
USAGE
No restrictions.
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Cloud-Ear Mushroom - For Spring Detox
By Vicky Chan of NourishU
Spring is in the air and it is time for many households to start their spring cleaning projects around their homes and gardens. Our body, after a whole winter of inactivity and over indulgence in greasy and highly dense food, should also be in great need for a good spring cleaning.
On the subject of cleansing and detoxifying our body, you may find yourself being overwhelmed by too many product advertisements in health magazines, newspapers, online newsletters and blogs and you may find it hard to decide where to start and what product to use. I think the best approach is to have a good assessment of your body condition first and then use it as a guideline to help determine your right course of action. This, together with your honest answers to how much time, money and effort that you would like to put into the exercise, are the determining factors on how successful you can be. I think it is only sensible to take a longer time and more moderate approach rather than going through some drastic regimens of extreme and punishing diets which can only kill your will power and good intension. May I suggest just changing your food choices to more healthful ones as a start which may take longer to see the effects but at least more doable and enjoyable?
Overall, if you can manage to feed yourself with more good clean and nutritional fluids such as good clean water, freshly squeezed fruits and vegetables juice and homemade broth, cut down on meat consumption, eat a little bit less and do sweat inducing exercises daily for about 45 minutes, you are on the right path to spring clean your body for better health.
On healthy food choices for detoxification, vegetables with high fiber content would be the best choice. Chive, garlic stem, daikon, bok-choy, watercress, yu-choy, collard green, kelp and seaweed are good in cleansing our stomach and digestive tract. Mushroom, beans and seeds are other good detox agents. Most mushrooms have anti-oxidant properties and are effective in fighting tumors and abnormal cell development. Beans and seeds are effective in helping the body to eliminate abnormal retention of water and waste products.
Mushrooms have a good reputation for delivering great health benefits. Most western people know about Asian shiitake mushroom and consume it regularly but they may not know about another black mushroom called cloud-ear mushroom.
Cloud-ear mushroom is smaller in size, thinner, more fragile and very different than shiitake. It is more a fungus than mushroom and the shape is like human ear. They are grown on wet tree trunks and cluster together like a stack of clouds. They are known to be very effective in cleaning the lungs, reducing plague and cholesterol. They are commonly used in Chinese home cooking because they are easily available and affordable. They are mostly sold dried therefore can be kept for a long time. They can be fully rehydrated after soaking for about 15 minutes and a little can turn into a lot so very easy and economical to use.
The mushroom itself is almost tasteless, just needs a few minutes to cook but its slippery and crunchy texture makes it a very unique culinary ingredient. Even with longer time cooking will not change its texture. Therefore, cloud-ear mushroom is best for putting in a stir-fry, quick soup recipes and vegetarian stew. You can also put it in salad or some appetizer dishes after quick cooking in hot water.
Last week, I was so pleasantly surprised when I found fresh cloud-ear mushroom for sale in Chinese supermarkets in the Greater Toronto area. They are now being farmed in some Ontario mushroom farms together with many other exotic species. I am so happy to be able to use them fresh in many recipes now.
Whenever I buy cloud-ear mushroom, my 95 year old mom (living with me) will tell her story again on how her father made them all eat a bowl first thing in the morning before breakfast when they were young and how much he loved and cared for them. They were using the dried ones then and have them soaked in an open pot overnight on the roof-top terrace to get some morning dews before cooking with a little sugar to make it tasty for children. This is the kind of breakfast that will make so much difference to our heath compared to eating a bowl of sweet cereal. However, I think this is a hard act to follow and I truly admire the grandfather whom I had never met.
The following is an easy stir-fry recipe which I have put together just for demonstration. I used ingredients I have on hand. Crunchy and easy to cook ingredients such as onion, zucchini, cucumber and sweet peppers go well together with this mushroom. You just vary them according to your liking. Sometimes I put the mushroom in vegetable soups and finish the soup with egg wash to make it a little bit fancier. I have also come to notice some Chinese dim-sum restaurants are using cloud-ear mushroom in their appetizers other than just in their usual steamed chicken.
Cloud-Ear Mushroom with Chicken Stir-Fry
Ingredients
- Cloud-ear mushroom
- Asparagus
- Red onion
- King mushroom
- Chicken breast
- Minced ginger and garlic
Directions
- Rinse and cut ingredients to desire thickness and length.
- Rinse and slice chicken breast thinly. Season with salt, pepper, cooking oil, soy sauce, potato starch and sesame oil.
- Heat wok, add mined ginger and garlic and stir briefly. Add onion and other vegetables to cook for a couple of minutes. Then add mushrooms and mix in seasoning to taste. When the cloud-ear mushrooms starting to make popping sound, sprinkle in a little cooking wine and a little water. Mix and cover with lid to cook for a few minutes. Then put everything aside.
- Heat wok with a little oil and add minced ginger and garlic to stir-fry chicken slices. When about 70 % cooked, sprinkle in cooking wine and return mushrooms & vegetable to the cooking to mix the ingredients. Put everything to plate when chicken is completely cooked.
Cloud-Ear Mushroom - For Spring Detox : Chinese Medicine Living
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If you would like a downloadable information sheet that will tell you all about how to live in harmony with the Spring Season in Chinese Medicine, you can find it here - The Spring Season in Chinese Medicine.
Chinese Water Chestnut
By Vicky Chan of NourishU
When I was growing up, Chinese water chestnut was one of the most popular street foods sold by food vendors. They are white in colour after the skin is peeled and sold strung together on a long stick. Most people and children like water chestnut during the hot summer because they are juicy, crunchy and very refreshing to eat and they have a delicate flavour and are mildly sweet in taste. It is best to eat them after being peeled and chilled in water (to prevent turning brown) in the fridge. It is definitely a much healthier alternative than other snacks such as lollypops or ice cream cones.
Chinese water chestnut is widely used in oriental cuisines. They can be sliced thinly to add to salads, stir-frys, vegetarian/meat stews or desserts. They can also be finely chopped and added to meat balls or stuffing to give it a softer texture and some crunchiness. Water chestnuts are ground into powder to make pudding, a popular dessert for dim sum lunch. The powder can also be used as thickener to add to soups, desserts, and sauces and glazes to give them a transparent look.
The healthful effects of water chestnut known to Chinese medicine are that they are cold in nature, sweet in taste and act on lungs and stomach. Water chestnuts can clear heat, relieve indigestion, promote urination, relieve hypertension, cure sore throat and hemorrhoids, stop coughing and clear phlegm. They are also effective in helping children to relieve skin rashes when having measles. Nowadays, water chestnut is found to be good for people wishing to lose weight because it has almost zero fat, releases water retention and is high in potassium. It is also used as a beauty food to promote better skin.
The following recipe is a common spring/summer drink for households with children. Modern children are eating too many highly processed foods such as chips, French fries, biscuits and baked goods which are causing their internal body systems to have too much heat. The symptoms of overheating are indigestion, lack of appetite, constipation or difficulties in passing stools, skin rashes or acne eruptions. Together with the immense summer heat, foods with cooling properties are necessary to balance out the system and not become sick. This recipe can help to soothe and rebalance the internal condition and can be taken regularly without restrictions. For parents who want their children to maintain good health throughout the summer, keeping the drink handy in the fridge instead of soft drinks is the best approach. And children will love it too because it is sweet in taste and very refreshing, and they will feel good after drinking it.
You can easily find sugar cane already cut into short sections and conveniently packaged with the fresh Imperatae root available for sale in the vegetable section of most Chinese super markets. If the fresh root is not available, you can just do without it. The root is for getting extra cooling and detoxifying effects.
Please search our website www.nourishu.com for other delicious recipes using water chestnut.
Sugar Cane & Water Chestnut Drink
SYMPTOMS:
Skin rashes or measles.
THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS
This recipe is for reducing internal heat and can help to alleviate pain during a measles outbreak. It can also be used regularly to detoxify the spleen, prevent rashes and for clearing internal heat during the spring and summer seasons.
INGREDIENTS
- Fresh/Dried Rhizoma Imperatae 鮮茅根 – 60 gram (optional)
- Carrot – 450 gram
- Water chestnut – 300 gram
- Sugar cane – 500 gram
1. Chop sugar cane into smaller pieces. Cut carrots into thin slices. Wash water chestnuts. You can either keep or remove the skin as you wish and crush them open with the back of a knife. Rinse the fresh root.
2. Put all ingredients in a big soup pot half full of water (about 3 liters) and cook over medium heat for one and a half hours until about 6 cups of water are left.
3. Strain and drink tea. The water chestnut can also be eaten if desired.
USAGE
Can be drunk regularly for the whole family.
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