“Almost” Waterless Sesame Chicken Soup
The Taiwanese classic sesame chicken made a little soupy with wintermelon is a one-pot miracle dish that will go with rice, noodles or by itself for days - if it even lasts in the fridge!
This is our take on the classic with some TCM ingredients to add a bit of depth, flavour and health twist. We use goji berries and longan for natural sweetness to replace some original recipes’ call for sugar.
Ingredients
- Chicken 1kg thighs or drumsticks
- Sesame Oil 1/4-1/2 cup
- Rice Wine 1/2 cup (optional if no alcohol)
- Ginger thumb size cut into 3mm slices - not too thin
- Wintermelon 300-500g (one slice around 7cm thick) sliced to about 0.5cm thick slices and skin removed
- Water or stock 1 cup
- Shiitake mushrooms soaked in hot water for 30min to rehydrate 20g (about 8)
- Goji berries about 20g (handful)
- Longan 5-10 pieces
- Coriander (optional)
- Noodles if serving with it. Other carbs or no carbs also OK.
Instructions
- Put sesame oil into a large stock pot and bring to medium heat.
- Once oil is slightly sizzling put in ginger slices and fry until curling but not crispy. Remove and set aside for later use.
- Turn to high heat and brown chicken pieces of choice. Don’t cook too much as it will go into the soup. Make sure sesame oil does not burn. Do this in batches if the pan is not hot or big enough.
- Add fried ginger wintermelon, shiitake mushrooms, longan into pot. If your ingredients are relatively small sized you can add the goji berries now. Otherwise leave this to add about 10min from finishing. Add 1/2cup water / stock. Adjust if too dry the wintermelon will soften and fill the pot with more liquid. Cook for at least 30min until wintermelon softens.
- Once soup is ready, keep warm with lid on to continue steaming with stove off. Add gojis at this stage if you have not added previously. Stir to mix.
- Cook noodles if serving with noodles for 2min.
- Serve noodles + soup into a bowl.
Enjoy!
If you make this, let us know how you go. We’d love to see your versions.
