Chicken & Daikon Soup (Rice Cooker Recipe)
Last week, I had the great pleasure of meeting tigerfish from teczcape when she came back to Singapore for a few days. Tigerfish recently published a cookbook, The Everything Rice Cooker Cookbook, and I was so happy to receive a signed copy from her. Prior to tigerfish’s cookbook, the only thing I know how to cook in the rice cooker is … rice! In this recipe, the rice cooker is successfully used to cook a hearty pot of Chinese chicken & daikon soup.
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This is a nourishing soup with cooling & qi-balancing” properties. Daikon, like luo han guo (monk’s fruit), is known to be beneficial for soothing a sore throat. It is also great for cleansing (detoxification). With the rice cooker acting like a slow cooker, the chicken meat was so tender it was practically falling off the bones. This recipe can be easily adapted by whatever equipment you use to cook soup – may it be a slow cooker, a normal soup pot on the stove, or keeping the soup warm for long hours in a thermal pot.
About the cookbook: There are more than 300 rice cooker recipes in this collection. Now I know it’s not just rice you can cook in a rice cooker. You also don’t need a high-end rice cooker to cook the dishes. All the dishes, I was told, can be whipped up in a traditional and inexpensive “keep warm/cook” rice cooker. I think this book is perfect for those into one-pot cooking, and extremely useful for people who wish to expand their range of cooking with minimal appliances (imagine students living in hostels). The book brings out the versatility of one-pot cooking teaching you techniques such as steaming, stir-frying, stewing and braising, all in the rice cooker. Now I know that besides rice, I can also cook pasta, congee, seafood, desserts, curries, stews, vegetables and more.
Chicken & Daikon Soup Recipe
The result is soup that has been deeply simmered with a rich taste – just like it has been slow cooked but in a much shorter time (thanks to the rice cooker).
Ingredients:
- 500g chicken skin removed & chopped to smaller pieces(I use 3 large chicken drumsticks, you can also use half chicken or chicken thighs)
- 1 litre of water
- 5 slices of ginger
- 1 daikon (white radish/白萝卜) about 300g, peeled and cut to large chunks
- 8 shiitake mushrooms stems removed
- 1 tbsp wolfberries soaked in water until puffy; drained
- 3 dried scallops
- salt to taste
Tools Needed
- A basic “keep warm/cook” electronic rice cooker
Directions:
- Add water to the rice cooker pot, set to “Cook’. When the water boils, add chicken in the rice cooker for 5-8 minutes with the rice cooker covered and discard the first change of cooking liquid. Set aside blanched chicken pieces.
- Add 1 litre of water to the rice cooker pot, cover and set to ‘Cook’.
- When the water boils, add chicken, daikon, mushrooms, dried scallops and ginger. Cover the rice cooker and return to a boil. I leave the soup in the ‘Cook’ mode for about 45 minutes.
- Switch the rice cooker to ‘Warm’ and allow to simmer for at least another 1-2 hours. 15 to 30 minutes before serving the soup, add the soaked wolfberries. Add salt to taste.
Adapted from The Everything Rice Cooker Cookbook by Tay Hui Leng