Wrap-turous Emperor Chicken

I have invited the ' wild boar  ' to be my guest writer again for I know he enjoys sharing his cooking adventures with all of you. Well...he did cook something great on my birthday...a special treat for me   :)  I would like him to share his cooking adventure with you and I happily gave him a space to rant on as a reward for taking the trouble to cook something nice for me .   (We didn't paint the town red for my two Piggies were not around to celebrate with us )  Have fun reading on and discover for yourself what the  ' wild boar ' has to rant about this dish :p

Rantings of the Wild Boar ....

Okay , lets start off with a little history, the wild boar (that’s yours truly) is only exactly half a century young and from these precious years I have shared 30years of it with my other half side of bacon (wifey) . So that means I have celebrated 30 times her birthday , each with something very meaningful….hopefully that is.

So for this 30^th time I decided to take the afternoon off after lunch from my busy schedule to prepare a dish which is I shall aptly name The Emperor’s Devotion, ahem ahem its nice to be an imaginary emperor once in a while instead of a wild boar. There is always a quick fix in life with all the instant products you can lay your hands on but this has to be that little bit special …. No Quick Fix from Instant Products this time.

So I popped in to my favourite Chinese medicine shop of mine to pick up a specially prepared concoction which is their personalise version of the Emperor’s Chicken Soup Mix.. What’s so special you may ask, yes its different because you get to sit down with your Herbalist and discuss on the fragrance you like or detest. For example too much Dong Quai, ahem, is not good for men please dun ask me here, we may have minors reading this article haha. Some may not like too much of it as it can mask other flavours too strongly. Well, to cut a long story short the guy pick up various ingredients and to this I added a small bit of Ginseng and that’s just a some shavings from the precious root. This was all ground up into a lovely smelling mix I guess about 30g in all.

Earlier in the week I had managed to buy some HDPE plastic wrap and a roll of aluminium foil as this is required to wrap up the 2 whole chicken legs I bought from the supermarket. Just a quick note DO NOT USE ANY OTHER PLASTIC as it will not take the heat in the steamer and will leech out dangerous chemicals.

Trim off all the excess fats and some loose skin from this two whole chicken legs and pat dry with a paper towel. Sprinkle this herbal powdered mix lovingly over the legs and you may add a sprinkling of salt, add some ginger shreds . You need to wrap the chicken up in the HDPE wrapper and twist it tight. Repeat with the alumininium wrap to completely seal the flavour in. Put in steamer for about one and half hours on low heat after the steamer starts to steam up. That’s about it simple nice and nutritious !

The Ingredients :

1. Herbal Mix from your Chinese Herbalist (specify Emperor Chicken)
2. Add some Ginseng if you wish
3. About a tablespoon of shredded ginger
4. 2 segments of garlic , about the size of a teaspoon only
5. A bit of salt ( you may add more to taste later on  )
6. A bunch of Cilantro Leaves

The Results ?

I believe the pictures included will complete the story . Upon opening the wrappers you will need to quickly bathe the chicken with the plentiful gravy in order to mix the ground herbs into the soup. You will be surprised that no additional water was added to the two whole legs and the juices were naturally extracted during the cooking process .The juicy meat deeply infused with lovely flavours from the herbs I will not be able to describe here, you must try it out yourself.

After a lovely dinner, before I tuck her in to bed I served her ‘dessert’  as she usually sleeps very soundly after  my ‘dessert’. I will not describe what’s for dessert ….. oh okay okay if you must know …. Spell it backwards please first word then second word    SAVIHC LAGER.

Oh by the way, I was served the best birthday cake she baked for herself , nicely topped up with Ferrero Rocher which happens to be my favourite.

Thank you ,till the next upcoming episode .

The Wild Boar.  
        

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