Sesame Oil Chicken 麻油雞


Description:
This is the food to eat after giving birth! 

Prep Time: 5 mins
Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients:
about 20 large slices of ginger
1/2 small chicken cut up (or equivalent in white meat or dark meat)
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1/2 bottle of cooking rice wine
2 tablespoon black sesame oil
thin fast cooking noodles (the kind that cooks in 2~3 mins)
Optional: Goji, Dried dates (presoaked), mushrooms

Instructions:
  1. Add cooking oil then ginger to wok in medium heat. Fry the ginger until you can smell it very strongly.
  2. Turn up the heat to high and add chicken to the wok.
  3. Once the chicken looks pretty cooked, add the rice wine to the pot. There should be enough to cover the chicken. (add the optional ingredients if you wish) Continue to cook the chicken.
  4. Meanwhile, boil a small pot of water. Once the water bubbles, add the noodles and boil for 2 mins then take them out and put them in a big bowl. Add a little bit of rice wine to it if you wish. Add 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and mix.
  5. Cook the chicken all the way until there's no more blood coming out, then add 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and continue to boil for another couple of mins. 
  6. Pour the chicken over the noodles.
Suggestions:
Don't add any salt to the chicken or else the chicken would not be as tender. If you wish, you can sprinkle a little salt over the noodles, but traditionally, this dish is salt-free because after birth, women shouldn't be eating any salt. 

Don't use sesame oil to fry the ginger because it would make the dish bitter. Sesame oil does not withstand heat very well and turns bitter fast, which is why it's added at the very end.

Cooking Rice Wine
This is cooking rice wine. It's clear in color. At the store they also sell a dark colored cooking wine. I've used both and they are both fine, but for this dish, most people use this kind.