Two chicken dishes

Today for lunch I made 野菜と鶏肉のくわ焼き, and for dinner とうがんと鶏肉の煮もの. Both are chicken dishes, and unbelievably easy to make.

野菜と鶏肉のくわ焼き is basically stir-fried chicken and vegetables (lotus root and エリンギ - king oyster mushroom). The veg is cooked first; the chicken is first marinated in soy sauce and Japanese cooking wine, and then coated in corn flour before cooking in the frying pan. And everything is stirred together with the sauce (soy sauce, mirin and Japanese cooking wine).



In contrast to the stir-fry, which has a great sweetened soy sauce (as mirin is added) flavour, とうがんと鶏肉の煮もの is even simpler in terms of flavour. There's very little added flavouring, just 1/2 tsp of salt, a big piece of ginger and some Japanese cooking wine. It reminded me greatly of the good ol' Chinese home cooking I used to get as a child.

とうがん (冬瓜 donggua), literally means "winter melon", is actually a summer fruit. Similar to watermelon, water makes up 90% of its weight, hence it's a very good hydrating fruit to counter the sizzling heat. The dish is basically boiled winter melon and chicken, a bit like a soup, but slightly different from the Chinese a corn syrup (2 tbsp cornflour with 4 tbsp water) is added at the end to thicken the soup. Because there's little flavouring, all you can taste is the original flavours of the melon and the chicken. Very natural, healthy and tasty!