Chicken Soup with Wolfberries

Serves 2-3.

Ingredients

1 small roasting chicken
6 slices fresh ginger
2 spring onions (scallions), sliced
2 tablespoons Chinese wine or sherry
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons wolfberries
few drops oriental sesame oil

Directions

Cut off the tail of the chicken, taking care to cut high enough so that the two glands on either side are also eliminated. Remove fat from body cavity, and all the skin except from the wings. Cut chicken into pieces through the bone, Chinese style.

Put the chicken and all the other ingredients except sesame oil into a yunnan pot or other heatproof earthenware dish. If a yunnan pot with its steam- conducting funnel is not available, add about 1 cup of water. (The yunnan pot will not need any water.)

Place pot on a trivet in a large boiler so it is above the level of water. Cover boiler with a well-fitting lid and cook on medium heat, keeping the water boiling and adding more from time to time as required, for 1 1/2 hours. Juices from the chicken will form the soup. Sprinkle sesame oil over and serve in the pot in which it was cooked.

Recipe excerpted from Encyclopedia of Asian Food by Charmaine Solomon (Periplus Editions, 1998)