Must Try: Dang Gui Ground Chicken Stew

This is dang gui.

Heard of dang gui (angelica sinesis) before? I have, but never yet had the chance to stir it up into a dish. This traditional chinese herb is also known as dong quai and tang kuei. It comes in 2nd place just after the highly sought-after herb, ginseng. Before moving on with the recipe, which I'd like to credit to Liana. I'd like to highlight on the benefits of dang gui:-

• Treatment related to women's reproductive health.
• Improves cardiovascular health.
• Menopause treatment and herbal tonic for women.
• Fertility treatment.
• Speeds up recovery after childbirth.
• Improves conditions of heavy menstrual bleeding and relieves period pain.
• May prevent the existence of uterine fibroid tumors.
• Improves blood health, balances blood pressure and functions as a blood tonic.
• Relieves constipation.
• Benefits the conditions related with the virus herpes zoster, headaches and migraines.
• May ease chronic inflammation in the case of rheumatism.
• Also benefits in the condition of fibrocystic breast disorder, hepatitis and allergies.

And according to Liana, cooking with this herb enhances flavor of the dish, especially for soups, meat and chicken. So when healthy and tastefulness comes together, how can we ever resist it?

Liana is the author of the blog 'A step closer to Allah' which I visit regularly to quench the thirst of my soul, but one day she posted on this lovely & healthy recipe that I cannot resist sharing (legally copyrighted, no worries). So, thanks again to her for this and here we go...

Ingredients:

• 2 onions(you could use less, I'd like more), finely chopped
• A packet of button mushrooms(or other kind of mushroom, your pick), sliced
• Some chilli, finely chopped
• 500g of ground chicken
• 6-7 pieces of sliced of dang gui, to be crushed
• Some tomatoes
• 2 carrots, cut into julienne (you could substitute it for potatoes,cubed)
• mixed province herbs (optional)
• Salt & pepper
• Chicken stock, chicken cube
• water
• canola oil (or other veggie oils)

The trustworthy ingredients

This is the lesung batu

Method:

1. Heat a few spoons of oil in a wok.
2. Add in onions and chilli until they let off an aroma.Wait until the onions are yellowish.
3. Add in the crushed dang gui, use your hands or wrap them in a cloth and give a thud with a lesung batu.
4. Next, goes in the mushrooms.
5. Add a few splash of water, or more to make it more watery.
6. Once it starts to boil, add in the chicken cube and carrots.
7. Now add in the ground chicken, give a stir or two.
8. Add in the province herbs, salt, pepper and tomatoes.
9. Occasionally add up the water, to ensure there's a bit of gravy in the wok. Add more water if you prefer soup style.
10. Let simmer for a 20 minutes(for the dang gui to thoroughly cook), or more to enhance thevdang gui's flavor.
11. Done! Serve with rice or pasta.

This is the end result, photo credits to Liana.

Try it out okay! I'm due to trying out myself. Hopefully all goes well. Can't wait to get cooking. Thanks for reading! =)