Saturday, March 1, 2014

1 Mar 14 (Sat) - Spare Ribs Cordyceps Flower Soup and Steamed Osmanthus Red Snapper

Saw Ellena Guan of Cuisine Paradise posting photos of dishes cooked using cordyceps flower and got curious about that ingredient. Happened to be in Chinatown for an excursion last Thursday and popped into a shop to check that out. Bought a small pack to try and then went on to check on the various recipes using cordyceps flower.

Cordyceps Flower

Found a few soup recipes that use chicken as the base so in the end decided to follow Cuisine Paradise' Double-boiled Cordyceps Flower Herbal Soup recipe. As I don't own a double-boiled pot nor a slow cooker and I didn't want to use chicken as base, I had to do some modifications to the recipe. So the end result was entirely based on my own estimations which fortunately didn't turn out too bad.


Ingredients:
$2 worth spare ribs
8g cordyceps flower
4 rice bowls of water
1 tsp wolfberries
8g dried longan
4 red dates
1 small ginseng, break into 3 parts

Method:
1.  Clean, rinse and blanch spare ribs in boiling water for 2 mins then rinse and set aside
2.  Rinse all the herbs and set aside
3.  Bring water to a boil and add in all the ingredients
4.  Boil the soup over med-low heat till left with two bowls of soup
5.  Season soup with salt according to taste and serve warm


Attempted the Steamed Osmanthus Cod Fish recipe from Cuisine Paradise again but this time I used red snapper fillet instead. Cooked some vegetables with oyster sauce and all these became my  meals for the day.


A little basic knowledge of cordyceps flower - Its actual name is called Cordyceps Militaris. It is not the flower of Cordyceps Sinensis but is a cultured mushroom fungus that has similar medicinal value as cordyceps. It is believed that this herb helps to strengthen the lung; kidneys and liver thus improve the body’s immune system as a whole.

Some said health benefits of the Cordyceps Flower:
  • Improve respiratory function to treat asthma, cough, emphysema, bronchitis
  • Improve kidney, boost energy and improve brain memory
  • Improve liver function to treat hepatitis
  • Reduce blood sugar, urine sugar
  • Reduce blood pressure and ease hypertension, thrombus diseases
  • Reduce heart disease risk, numbness of hands or feet
  • Antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer
  • Antioxidant and anti-aging
  • Enhance overall immune system

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