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Chinese Medicated Cuisines

By Song Yanyan | chinaculture.org | Updated: 2012-05-16 17:52

Production of medicated cuisines

Cooking principles

Medicine and food both have four characters (cold, hot, warm and cool) and five tastes (sour, bitter, sweet, spicy and salty). When cooking medicated cuisines, one should realize “four characters” are the foundation of medicine and food, and “five tastes” are functions of people’s body. Good taste should also be taken into account when making medicated cuisines.

Ingredients

Almost all food ingredients can be used to cook medicated cuisines. In addition, some medicine is needed. No matter what kind of medicated cuisine it is, condiments must be used including ginger, garlic, pepper, vinegar, sugar, balm and scallion.

Cooking ways

The most common ways to cook medicated cuisines are stewing, braising, simmering, steaming, boiling, decocting, scrambling and frying. Different ways are used to cook according to the texture and flavor of ingredients. For mild and fragrant ingredients, it is better to be cooked for a short time; while those heavy-flavored and greasy ingredients are better to be stewed, simmered or steamed for a long time.

Famous medicated cuisines Spicy chicken with chili sauce Ingredients: chicken wrist, chicken liver, the fruit of Chinese wolfberry, lettuce slices, soy sauce, mature vinegar, fine salt, white sugar, scallion, ginger, pepper, balm and aginomoto. Characteristics: it is light brown and tastes fragrant, spicy, delicious and tender. Effect: this medicated cuisine can enrich the blood and build one’s body. The salty chicken liver is not only rich in nutrition but also provides ingredients to create blood. It is beneficial for blood, liver and eyes; the sweet chicken gizzard is good for one’s spleen and stomach. Chinese Medicated Cuisines

Salt-baked tofu with eight kinds of traditional Chinese medicine Ingredients: yam, sea cucumber, fresh mushroom, green bamboo shoots, ginkgo, green beans, crab, cashew and tofu.

Characteristics: it is bright and tastes delicious. Moreover, it is one of the most popular household medicated cuisines.

Effect: with yam as the main medicine, this medicated cuisine can enahnce both qi and yin. Meanwhile, with the addition of fresh mushroom and ginkgo is good for one’s stomach.

Yam peach posing wintersweet

Ingredients: yam, white sugar, ginkgo flesh, sugar sweet-scented osmanthus, sweet jujube paste, water starch, red and green candied fruit and lard. Characteristics: this medicated cuisine looks like real peaches with a magnificent posture of “wintersweet”. It tastes soft and delicious.

Effect: the Chinese yam is good for the spleen and ginkgo is good for the lungs. This cuisine is very beneficiary for those who have suffered from cold for a long time. It can also improve digestion if healthy people have this cuisine.

Chicken steamed with gastrodia elata

Ingredients: hen, gastrodia elata, pepper, ham, rice wine, mushroom, scallion, winter bamboo shoots, ginger, chicken consommé, aginomoto and fine salt.

Characteristics: this cuisine tastes salty and delicious. With chicken and gastrodia elata steamed together, the broth boasts plant fragrance and mellow chicken soup. It is very popular among people.

Effect: Containing vitamin A and trace alkaloids, this medicated cuisine is very nutritious and particularly helpful for extinguishing liver-wind and relieving spasms and pain.