Sam Gye Tang - Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup - (삼계탕)

The MR is actually not really a fan of chicken, so I try and stay away from it as much as possible. But I thought I would go ahead and make sam gye tang anyhow since I haven't made it in a long time. Plus, the MR and Munchkin both enjoy the dak jook that I make with the leftover sam gye tang all the time.

Needed:

• 1 cornish game hen
• 3 ginseng roots (you can buy the freah kind if you want, but I tend to just buy the dry ones because it's a lot less $$)
• 4-5 dried chestnuts (or fresh ones)
• 7-10 whole garlic cloves
• 10 daechus (dried jujubees)
• sweet rice - enough to stuff the hen with
  

These are the items you will be using for your broth. Garlic cloves, ginseng root, chestnuts, and daechus.



Take your chicken out of it's package and give it a nice bath and make sure to drain as much blood out of the cavities as possible.



Bring the chicken to a boil in a pot of water and when you see this gunk start to appear, remove it from the heat.



Give it a nice rinse under cold water and make sure you carefully clean out the inside too. There's a lot of blood and gunk that gets accumulated inside after that quick boil. Once the chicken is cleaned off, you're now ready to stuff the chicken.



Add enough sweet rice to fill up half the chicken, then add a clove of garlic and a chestnut, fill the rice to to top and seal it off by positioning a daechu and garlic piece like this. You can go ahead and sew the chicken shut if you want to. But in my experience if you stuff it closed carefully like this and make sure there's a tight fit, most of the rice doesn't escape. Oh, and excuse me for making you stare at the a** of a chicken. =P



Clean the pot, add the chicken and fill with as much water as you can. Make sure you use a pot that is narrow and high to give the chicken a snug fit. You need at least 5 inches of water to cover the chicken because most of it will evaporate anyhow. So be sure to use a pot high enough.



Bring the soup to a boil and keep skimming any remaining fat that rises to the top. You don't want to boil the water too harshly. Make sure it's a slow boil. Cover the pot and let it boil for up to 3-4 hours. Every 30 minutes or so use a large ladle to flip the chicken over to ensure even cooking.



This is what the broth looked like after about 1.5 hours. I removed all but 2 daechus (jujubes) at this point, but left everything else in there.



About 3.5 hours later the broth was ready.



I took this picture for presentaton. You're ready to serve! You can tear the chicken meat away and add some soup. Add salt to taste with some green onions as garnishment and you can add rice directly to the soup and enjoy. Don't forget the delicious sweet rice inside the chicken!