Winter Recipe

I've spent a lot of this year feeling sleep deprived, and generally on the verge of sickness, so trying to eat some healthy meals has been a top priority. Now that winter has arrived, I'm sure there's a lot of you out there feeling a bit sniffly and miserable too. Might I suggest this super immunity boosting dish? Adapted from Marion Grasby's Beggars Chicken recipe, this is a meal to help you get back on your feet if you're feeling rundown.

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch coriander
• 10 cloves of garlic
• few cms of ginger
• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 6 x chicken thighs
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 5 star anise
• ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon white sugar or palm sugar 
• 1 litre chicken stock or water 

• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 head of broccoli
• one bunch of spring onions

Method:

Cut the leaves off the coriander, and rinse the roots and stems. Chop into a fine mush, along with the garlic and ginger. Use a pestle and mortar if you have one big enough.

Heat your oil in a large saucepan and add the coriander-garlic-ginger, heating through for a minute or so to create a fragrant paste. Add the whole chicken thighs and cook for a few minutes until slightly browned.

Pour over soy sauce, fish sauce, and stock or water to cover your chicken.  Add the star anise, black pepper, and sugar, then simmer the lot for about 40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through, and you have a delicious broth.

While this is cooking, get your brown rice on. I use one cup of rice, to two cups water. Or pour enough water over to sit two centimetres above the rice. Cover, then once the rice is boiling away keep an eye on it until it looks like the water has just about evaporated, and then turn it off. If you keep the lid on the rice should just steam itself cooked in about 20 minutes. This is my fullproof rice cooking method.

Add your chopped broccoli to your pot of rice, and it will all steam up nicely together.

Before serving, add chopped spring onions to your chickeny broth, and the shredded coriander leaves. Pull the chicken out and slice into bite sized pieces, to make it extra nice and easy to consume. Layer up your rice and broccoli in bowls, and cover with your chickeny broth. Delish!