Homemade Cantonese Soup—American Ginseng Chicken Soup

Recently, I’ve been addicted to making all kinds of Cantonese soup in the same way my mom cooks for the whole family, and it makes me feel home :)

Today, let’s make anther traditional Cantonese soup—American Ginseng Chicken Soup.

Ingredients: chicken (around two pound, you could either buy a whole chicken or just chicken drumsticks), one bag of American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs (which you can find at any Chinese supermarket, please see the picture below), salt

American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs, from left: wolfberries, dried polygonatum, dioscorea opposita & Amercia ginseng

Packet of American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs

Cooker: a pot that can hold at least one gallon of water (around 8-10 bowls of water)

Step 1: cut chicken into chunks (if you use only chicken drumsticks, you don’t have to cut them, which is easier)

Step 2: boil one gallon of water in the pot

Step 3: put the cut chicken into the boiling water for 5 mins

Step 4: take chicken out of boiling water, get rid of chicken skin, and wash them with cold water (it makes sure that the meat is as less fat as possible, so the broth is clear and non-oily)

cut and washed chicken

Step 5: wash the American Ginseng mixed Chinese herbs

Step 6: boil another gallon of water in the pot

Step 7: put the washed herbs and chicken into boiling water

Step 8: turn down the cooking heat to slow till the water is boiling again

Step 9: slow cook the soup for an hour and a half

Step 10: add salt according your personal preference, and then the soup is ready to serve!

American Ginseng Chicken Soup served in a bowl

Enjoy your homemade delicious and healthy American Ginseng Chicken Soup :)

BEST Summer Rolls in Allston

Besides Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup), Le’s Restaurant has the BEST summer rolls I’ve ever tasted in Allston!

Summer Rolls

Fresh Summer Rolls (GOI CUON in Vietnamese) have fresh and nutritious ingredients like “shredded lettuce, mint and rice vermicelli”, and you can choose either “sliced pork, shrimp” or “a traditional combination of sliced pork and shrimp”.

fresh ingredients

All the ingredients are wrapped into “a softened rice paper”, which is so delicately made that you can see the ingredients through the rice paper. The low-fat rolls taste so fresh and flavorful, with peanut dipping sauce.

transparent rice paper

Fresh summer rolls also have vegetarian options, served with tofu.

Best Chicken in Boston

BEST chicken I’ve tasted in Boston ever!

This post is gonna be about my favorite chicken dish—Empress Salted Chicken! Even the name of the dish sounds so awesome: the chicken delicately prepared only for the powerful empress in ancient China, the mysterious land in the Far East. We can now all taste this dish at Ho Yeun Ting in Chinatown, located at 13 Hudson St., Boston, MA 02111.

Empress Salted Chicken

The restaurant is really not that flashy nor spacious, but the chicken is so good that I don’t really care about the simple decoration and limited capacity at all! The chicken is so perfectly cooked and salted that it is tender and juicy from outside to inside, and even you can taste its special salty flavor from the bones. So Yum! Also, they do take out, and you can either order half or the whole Empress Salted Chicken! I just looove saying the name :)

Hong Kong Style BBQ in Chinatown

In Hong Kong, BBQ meat is one of the very important dishes at family dinner, as well as in big holiday feast. Vihn-Sum BBQ restaurant, located at 58 Beach Street, Boston, MA 02228, has some of the best Hong Kong style BBQ meat in Chinatown.

The restaurant doesn’t have much decoration, but it is very clean and spacious, with two floors.

We ordered a BBQ combo including everything—roast duck, roast pork (char siu), roast pork chop, and roast pig (siu yuk). All of the BBQ meat were authentically and traditionally grilled, very juicy and tender! Yum yum!

Hong Kong Style BBQ (from top: roast pork chop, roast pork, roast duck & roast pig)

They also have a take-out BBQ booth, where the skillful butchers cut the BBQ meat quickly and precisely according to your order!

Another dish we ordered was Shredded Chicken. It was a cold dish that came with a lot of vege like carrots, tomatoes, green pepper and red pepper, and white sesame on top. Not really Hong Kong/Cantonese style shredded chicken, so I don’t recommend it…

Shredded Chicken

Vihn-Sun also has a broad Hong Kong style menu, from sandwich, congee to milk tea. I’ll follow up with another review about it soon!!

Taiwanese food in Allston

One really good Taiwanese restaurant in Allston is Jo Jo Taipei (I had a post about its lunch special earlier). Today, let's explore some of its best authentic Taiwanese dishes. Hope you are excited like me!! :)

“Three Cups” Chicken is a very popular dish in Taiwan, and the name “Three Cups” is originally from the three cups of required sauce for this dish, including soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. It comes in small portion, but still a small pot of delicious chicken. Recommend it!

“Three Cups” Chicken

Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Sauce is a typical dish from Southern China, tender pork chops perfectly seasoned with homemade sweet and sour sauce, yum!

Pork Chops with Sweet and Sour Sauce

Sauteed Pig’s Kidney with Chili Sauce: I know I know, it is pig’s kidney, but if you wanna try something new and authentic like several of my friends, I think there is a good chance that you’d love the perfectly cooked dish with onion, green and red pepper. It is mild spicy though.

Sauteed Pig’s Kidney with Chili Sauce

Salted Fried Jumbo Crab: the flavor and the seasoning were great, but the crab was not that jumbo… The crab was so skinny, and honestly I could get much meat from the crab… It should be a perfect dish during the crab season though!

Salted Fried Jumbo Crab

Bow Bin: snowy-like crushed ice with fresh, homemade, sweet toppings (including red bean, jelly, etc.), and dressed with corn syrup and condensed milk. It is just a perfect refreshing dessert to finish off a big and satisfying meal!

Bow Bin

Sichuan Food in Cambridge

After the Sichuan intro in last post, now let's taste some real authentic Sichuan cuisine!!

Thailand Café, located at 302 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, is actually a Sichuan cuisine restaurant, despite its name—I am still confused why it is called that way. It is not a spacious and fancy decorated restaurant, but it is close to Harvard and MIT, and it has some good dishes (not every dish is great though). Here are the dishes we ordered:

Roast beef, tongue & tripe with chili-peanut vinaigrette: it is a hot appetizer. It is one of the best house special dishes. Tender beef with flavorful chili-peanut vinaigrette. Yummy! Strongly recommend it if you are into spicy food.

Roast beef, tongue & tripe with chili-peanut vinaigrette

Poached chicken with chili sauce: it is a hot appetizer. Tender chicken with authentic Sichuan chili sauce, and a mixed flavor if you eat it with the peanut on the top. Another dish I'd recommend :)

Poached chicken with chili sauce

Double cooked Chinese style bacon: it is not a spicy dish, so you might want to try it if you are not a big fan of spicy food. But I’ve had better in other restaurants which I’ll write about later.

Double cooked Chinese style bacon

Chong Tsing dry hot chicken: not recommend—it is supposed to be a hot dish, but to me, it is neither dry nor hot enough.

Chong Tsing dry hot chicken

Braised whole fish with Sichuan chili sauce: not recommend—it is supposed to be a spicy dish, but still, it is not spicy enough, and it even tasted a little bit sweet…

Braised whole fish with Sichuan chili sauce

Szechuan Beef

Cantonese Food in Brighton

Let’s have some deeelicious Cantonese food! Joyful Garden, located at 1234 Soldiers Field Road, Brighton, MA 02135, is one of my favorite Cantonese/Hong Kong restaurants. Not only its food, but also its setting is very Cantonese. And I have to say that it is more spacious and cleaner than the restaurants in Chinatown.

We had jellyfish salad for appetizer. It is a refreshing cold dish with jellyfish, carrot and radish.

Jellyfish Salad

One of their Chef’s specialties is Hainan Chicken, which is a local specialty from the island of Hainan in China. Hainan was part of Canton before it became a province itself, so Hainan Chicken is still largely considered as a Cantonese cuisine. I looove the poached chicken served with fresh ginger and green onion sauce!

Hainan Chicken

We also had fried silvery fish with spliced salt and pepper. It is crispy and fried to perfection. Definitely recommend it if you are a fan of fried dish!

Fried Silvery Fish with Spliced Salt and Pepper

Any traditional Cantonese meal at least has one vegetable dish. We had sautéed bean seedlings with garlic. As I mentioned in the last blog post, we Cantonese like vegetables to be cooked as fast as possible, because in this way we could have better natural nutrition and flavor from the dish.

Sautéed Bean Seedlings with Garlic

As for fried-rice-lover, I strongly recommend their salted fish with chicken fried rice, which is a popular fried rice back in Canton and Hong Kong. Savory salted fish + tender chicken + fragrant jasmine rice = addictive yummy!

Salted Fish with Chicken Fried Rice