Cooking with Chinese Herbs.
Vegetarian Congee.
If you're trying to cook without using oil, then the Eastern Congee is the perfect recipe for you.
It is essentially a white rice soup, made with abundant stock rich fluid, and the vegetables of your choice added towards the end (so they don't get too over cooked). Meat and fish can also be added. I like to add marmite and nutritional yeast to mine as I'm vegetarian.
Although some people shy away from rice, due to it being a complex carbohydrate, It is used in Chinese Herbal Medicine to tonify the spleen and stomach. This means that is helps to support the digestion with its warm and naturally sweet properties. Eaten this way, with the excess fluid helps anyone who's diet tends to includes more drying foods which deplete fluids and leave the you feeling dehydrated.
Is there a difference between herbs and food?
Herbs are known for having medicinal properties, however all food is medicine when used correctly.
Many official Chinese herbs, used In medical prescriptions, are just as commonly found in a Chinese kitchen, and used in cooking, sometimes daily.
In the West we will probably all agree that Ginger (Sheng Jiang) is an essential food, Spring Onion (Cong Bai) and Goji berries (Gu Qi Zi) also.
These foods are all found in the Chinese Materia Medica though, and are officially medicinal herbs.
In the East, Shan Yao (Chinese Yam), Yi Yi Ren (Coix Seed) and Lian Zi (lotus Seed), to name just a few, again are medicinal 'foods' which are listed in the Materia Medica but used in cooking daily, season dependant of course. These herbs can be found in most Asian supermarkets and can be soaked in water for a few hours before use. Simply add them to the congee before you add your vegetables.
Food Is Medicine!! Use it how you wish, but if you really want to, you can use food , not just for pleasure, and nutrients, but to heal and prevent illnesses.
