Recently I got struck down with another terrible bout of vestibular migraines which is still lingering. Triggers are different for everybody; for me, I find that after some decadent meals & the occasional cocktail out on the town, these migraines hit me like a town of bricks. An episode can last as short as a few hours or as long as a few months.
During this time, I keep to what Chinese call a very “clear” diet which is very low in salt and oil. One of my go to recipes is a Hong Kong styled chicken soup recipe my father taught me.
The soup base can be used in a multitude of dishes. Congee, soup noodles, wontons or dumplings, or even rice in soup dishes. You can even substitute soup in place of water when cooking rice, to make chicken rice. Sometimes, I add some cornflour in water & make the soup base into a gravy which you can pour over rice and steamed/boiled chicken or vegetables. The choices are endless!
Makes 2-4 serves
Ingredients
300g of chicken drumsticks, skin & fat removed
60-100g chicken bones (optional, helps enhances flavours & textures)
1 x large dried scallop
1 x sugar date
10 x goji berries
a few drops of sesame oil
2L water
Place chicken, scallop, date & goji berries into a pot. Add about 1.5L of water (making sure everything is submerged in the process). Bring pot to boil, and continue to simmer for at about one hour. If you have used chicken bones, you may want to simmer for an extra hour, adding additional water when necessary.
Once the soup has finished cooking, take the pot off the heat & season w salt, white sugar and white pepper to taste. Strain the contents out of soup using a muslin cloth lined sieve. Add a few drops of sesame oil to enhance flavour. The soup base is now ready to be used.
Soup can last up to one week in a fridge if in a tightly sealed container. You can also freeze the soup for up to six months.
Serving suggestion! Rice in soup. Add one bowl of old rice (up to four days’ old is safe), 150g minced pork (marinated w salt, sugar, sesame oil & crushed garlic), 8 large leaves of wombok sliced thinly & one dried scallop, broken into little pieces. Bring to boil until pork & wombat is fully cooked. Season w salt & pepper, finished w chinese chives. Use 1-1.2L of soup to serve two people.
