2 lb chicken
3 tbsp sesame oil
6 slices ginger root
1/2 cup medium sherry
1/2 tsp salt
2 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup button mushrooms, canned
8 fresh asparagus spears
Directions
Preparation: Rinse chicken, remove fat pockets, pat dry, and chop
into bite-size pieces. NOTE: if tempted to use breast meat without
bones, please don`t; bones add to body and flavor of soup. Peel and
slice ginger root. Wash and cut asparagus into 2" sections.
Braising: Heat wok to medium hot. Add sesame oil. Start braising
chicken a few pieces at a time when oil begins to smell. Sesame oil
will burn at lower temperature than other cooking oils, so avoid hot
wok. After browning lightly, return chicken pieces to wok; add ginger
slices, sherry and salt. When sherry boils, add water and sugar. Turn
up heat, bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmer, cover and simmer
for 30 minutes. Add mushrooms and asparagus, simmer for another 15
minutes.
Transfer to covered soup tureen (or put plate on top of soup bowl),
place in steamer on low, and hold until ready to serve.
You can make this soup in large sauce pan, if wok is needed for
something else.
Servings: 4 servings
Asparagus & Sesame Chicken Soup Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Chicken; Chicken Soup; Poultry; Soup; Vegetable
The History of Recipes
It is quite feasible to follow the history of transcribed cooking instructions way back into the far past, certainly as far back into history as early Egypt, and maybe further still. In practice though, mostly, these old cookbooks were just very simple pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform recipes for food preparation.
In fact, the oldest recipe found, according to Professor Solomon Katz, are some tablets in the Sumerian language describing the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making those who drank it feel `exhilarated, wonderful and blissful`. Progressing into Roman times around 25BC a man called Apicius compiled a collection of documents detailing recipes cooked by wealthy roman citizens. In his scrolls, Apicius describes how the meals of wealthy Romans were separated into hors d`oeuvres, main course and desserts, a style of dining still practiced today. This early Roman chef informs us how the ancient Romans made use of a good variety of herbs, including a few that are still present in modern kitchens like bay, fennel and asafoetida. Later on, there are two recipe books which were published in the fourteenth century ; a recipe book titled `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary named `Curye on Inglish`. Despite their titles, these books are unconnected to the indian curry that is popular today, but rather accounts of the types of meals served to the upper classes of that period. Later on in the 1400s, the Crusaders brought back many foods and herbs from the Middle-East, including spices like basil and coriander. The introduction of these new tastes caused a torrent in recipe books, many of which still exist in private libraries. For the next few years, the powerful families of Europe competed to offer the most extravagent meals, and as a result the best chefs and their recipe collections were highly sought after. However, it wasn`t until the nineteenth century that cookery and recipe collections became really popular. Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the USA, dedicated the best years of their lives to collecting, verifying, and recording recipes to help cooks of their time. By the advent of the twentieth century, recipe publications were in great demand, mostly as a result of increased literacy, people having increased free time and being a little richer. |
We hope you enjoy this Asparagus & Sesame Chicken Soup recipe.
