Home cooking · Xianyitang dried ingredients
Tender chicken thigh and golden-orange cordyceps flowers steam together with fine ginger and a light savoury sauce. Spoon the fragrant juices over separately cooked rice. This four-person sharing dish uses 15 g dried fungi and 500 g boneless chicken thigh.
Times are estimates and include the soaking, proofing or chilling stated below. Some preparation can overlap. Check the ingredient and finished-dish conditions described in the method.
Recipe illustrations; measure ingredients using the written quantities.
Pick over and rinse the dried fungi. Cover with about 400 ml cold drinking water for roughly 10–15 minutes until pliable with no dry hard sections. Discard the water, rinse and drain. Change the water and soak a little longer if necessary; refrigerate covered if cooking is delayed. Soaking does not cook them.
Do not wash raw chicken. Cut it into even 2–3 cm pieces. Mix with the soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, cornflour and 20 ml water, then add oil and ginger. Cover and marinate for 15 minutes in a fridge at 5°C or below. Clean hands, raw-meat utensils and work surfaces afterwards.
Mix the fungi into the chicken and spread in a shallow heatproof dish approximately 26 cm wide, in close to a single layer. Leave steam space above it. For a smaller steamer, cook two batches and keep the second refrigerated; allow extra time.
Bring steamer water to the boil. Place the dish securely on the rack above the water, cover and steam steadily for about 20–25 minutes. Check the steamer water and top up with hot water if needed; never let it boil dry. Time varies with thickness, equipment and batch size.
Probe the centres of several thick chicken pieces with a clean thermometer: they must reach 75°C for 30 seconds. The fungi must also be thoroughly cooked and tender. Continue steaming and recheck if needed. Scatter over the spring onion, steam for another minute and lift out with oven gloves. Serve hot.
Contains molluscs in oyster sauce and soya in soy sauce, commonly also wheat; check sauce labels. The Xianyitang dried-ingredient packs state that they are packed in a facility also handling peanuts, tree nuts, sesame and soya. Check the actual labels of every brand used.
Keep raw meat and rehydrated fungi refrigerated at 5°C or below; follow the raw-meat pack instructions. Separate raw and cooked utensils and clean hands and surfaces after handling raw meat. Divide leftovers into shallow containers, cool promptly and refrigerate within 2 hours of cooking. Eat within 48 hours or freeze. Reheat only once until steaming hot throughout.
