Chinese Confinement Recipes: Ginger Wine Chicken
Confinement Recipes for Week 4-6
This is the last of the confinement recipes from this series. It's been really uplifting to be able to share all these recipes with expectant mothers who, like myself don't live in Asia and usually rely on our parents or in laws to be able to cook these traditional confinement meals for us.
Using a dry wok or pan, turn heat to high. Once smoking, add in the thinly sliced ginger and toast until light brown.
From week 3 for natural births or from week 4 for caesareans onwards, you're able to enjoy a bit more variety and your digestive system is better at taking a little more salt if you like salty food like me.
1) Meals can now be pan fried and stir fried, rather than just steamed but keep to low oil
2) You can start to eat soya sauce and eggs again
3) Still avoid cold or raw foods
4) Start to eat ginger, red dates, red beans and any foods that help with blood circulation and replenishment
5) Introduce collagen such as pigs trotters, fish maw, birds nest, snow ear fungas and enrichment foods like ginseng and dong quai
You can still eat plenty of the confinement meals from week 1-3, this is just an additional recipe that you can now start eating as well.
Ginger wine chicken is one of the most important confinement dishes along with pigs trotters in black vinegar. It contains plenty of ginger to aid blood circulation and to of course expel 'wind', the wine for nourishing the body and chicken for its high protein.
As discussed before, this dish containing high amounts of ginger shouldn't be eaten right after birth as the ginger can make blood loss from birth even worse. Once you've reached 3-4 weeks post birth, ginger wine chicken can be eaten daily for the next few weeks.
The yellow wine made from glutinous rice I used in for this ginger wine chicken was brought over all the way from Hong Kong, made by one of my mum's friends, so unfortunately I'm not sure if this can be bought in the UK. But, you can absolutely buy glutinous rice wine in jars from Chinese supermarkets like this one:
I've enjoyed researching into it for my own postpartum and proud to have a set of confinement recipes to share with those whose main language is English and would struggle to read confinement recipes in Chinese. All of the confinement meals I've shared are great as every day meals too, easily cooked and shared with the family, so don't feel that you need to stop once your confinement is over! Ginger wine chicken is particularly great in the winter to help warm you up and give lots of nourishment.
Ingredients:
1 pack of chicken thighs, skinless and boneless (approx 640g)
1 root of ginger (approx 3 inch long)
1 cup of rice wine
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
Directions:
1) Peel the ginger with peeler or use a teaspoon to scrape off the skin. Slice into thin pieces
2) Cut chicken thigh into cubes
3) Use a dry wok or pan, turn the heat to high. Once smoking, add in the thinly sliced ginger and toast until light brown
2) Cut chicken thigh into cubes
3) Use a dry wok or pan, turn the heat to high. Once smoking, add in the thinly sliced ginger and toast until light brown
4) Push the ginger to one side of the wok, add oil to the pan and then add in the chicken. Brown chicken on both sides, approximately 3-4 minutes
5) Mix the ginger in with the chicken and pour in the rice wine. Once the chicken is cooked through, add some salt to taste
6) Serve with rice and plain steamed veggies
6) Serve with rice and plain steamed veggies
Take a look at all my other confinement recipes + confinement background
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