Cooking/ Recipes

Ginger Chicken Hot Pot w/ Rice Cakes

There’s a critical step that often gets missed in this whole reading food blogs thing.

Observe:
Step 1: Ooh, I really want to make something with potatoes.
Step 2: Google potato recipes
Step 3: Scroll past the text and ogle hasselbeck potatoes, stuffed potato skins, potato salad, tater tots, hash browns, etc.
Step 4: Read recipes
Step 5: Possibly comment “Ooh, looks yummy.” Alternatively, pin recipes to your “Yummy Potatoes” Pinterest board.
Step 6: The End.

What’s missing here?

Did you make any of those recipes? Did you go back to the blog and ask questions? Did you document anything, write your own blog post or comment back on those recipes? 95% of the time, I bet the answer is no.

C’mon people, stop just looky-looing photos of melty cheese and chocolate drizzles. Create a Pinterest board of dishes you actually made and tell the world if a recipe actually worked. I want to know if that Rosemary Pinecone Bourbon Cake actually tastes good or like licking tree bark. I want to know if you made some tweaks to improve on the original.

Follow Michelle Jenkins | DailyWaffle’s board Made on Pinterest.Now let’s get to this Ginger Chicken Hot Pot, from on a recipe that appeared on Serious Eats last week.

SERIOUS EATS RECIPE: Easy Chicken and Ginger Soup with Rice Cakes, Chives and Quick Pickled Garlic

I almost never make chicken broth from scratch. Our freezer space isn’t huge and there are already two big containers of turkey stock in there from Thanksgiving. For most chicken soups, low sodium boxed broth works just fine. Where they tend to miss the mark is if you’re looking to make an Asian chicken soup. You don’t really want the usual carrot, celery, onion and bay leaf flavors. This one is simply chicken, onion, green onion and ginger.

Once it’s done cooking, you’ll be thinking, this just doesn’t taste like much. Add the salt. I ended up adding two tablespoons. You may want to add less.

Now, this is where I went in a slightly different direction. I piled on the vegetables — Shanghai baby bok choy, carrot and sugar snap peas — and skipped the ginger and cilantro. The ginger wasn’t young enough and came across soapy, so I skipped it on the second go-round. Though the chicken had all been removed, the flavors had some time to gel and the broth tasted even better second day.

So what have you made lately from other blogs or pins? Let me know some of your faves.

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Print Recipe

Ginger Chicken Hot Pot w/ Rice Cakes

Serves: 4-6

Cooking Time: 2 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

1 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 serving pieces, back and neck reserved
1 (3-inch) knob ginger, roughly sliced
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 small yellow onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 bunch of scallions, pale greens and whites finely sliced, dark greens kept whole
~2 T. kosher salt
3 Shanghai baby bok choy, chopped, leaves separated from the stalks
1 large carrot, finely sliced in coins
1/2 lb. sugar snap peas
1 cup rice cakes

Instructions

To make the broth, follow Kenji's instructions here: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/01/easy-chicken-ginger-soup-rice-cake-chive-quick-pickled-garlic-recipe.html

Shred about 1/2 c. chicken per person.

In a large pot, bring the broth back to a simmer. Add the shredded chicken and rice cakes and cook for 5-7 minutes until the rice cakes are cooked through. Add the sugar snap peas and bok choy stalks. Cook for 2 minutes until the snow peas are bright green. Add the bok choy leaves and cook just until wilted.

Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with carrot and green onion.