#samgyetang

Samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) with black chicken

I love my samgyetang (Korean ginseng chicken soup)! But to make it. .. it’s a process. I made it no more than 3 times from scratch, +/- the rice inside stuffed inside the chicken but then after the discovery of the ‘soup bags’ (ie: the soup packs that contain all the necessary herbs), it has gotten easier & I stopped making samgyetang with the rice inside lol so it’s merely a soup.

Anyway, it’s been possibly years since my last ‘real’ samgyetang (complete with rice inside). .. I can’t even recall when that would be hmm.. but recently, my coworker told me about her purchase of instant samgyetang, so then I bought it myself to try it out.

This is what we bought from Hmart. It’s completely frozen. Like. .. FROZEN!

Instructions on the back. .. note #1 - “do not open the inner pack......”

So I assumed there was another bag inside.

Did I read it properly or no? The INNER pack.

Anyway, I partially defrosted it & when I felt there was a little bit of liquid in the bag, I opened the bag, & realized. .. there is no “INNER” pack -.-” The package was single-layered.

So then. .. instead of following the remainder of the instructions of putting the (inner) pack in a pot of boiling water for x minutes, I was forced to dump out all the contents haha hence, it just become stove-top cooking. Which isn’t the worst idea. .. but I was kinda looking forward to the whole ‘instant-ness’ of this product.

I boiled it for ~15mins on low-medium heat. The content is all cooked; it was just a matter of heating it up.

Ahhh a real piece of ginseng haha besides ginseng, there was also a piece of chestnut (found outside the chicken).

Inside the chicken, there’s rice & 1 piece of jujube.

So what was the taste like?

I didn’t add any water to it; just defrosted it & boiled it. I thought it was delicious; it tasted fresh & plainly-rich. Ginseng chicken isn’t a “rich” soup; it’s a clean & clear, & even though this was a frozen product, the flavour tasted like it was a freshly made soup! For real!! Chicken meat wasn’t dry & was flavourful. The meat just fell off the bone. The rice, I believe, was a mix of glutinous rice & short grain rice. It was sticky & worth the buck! haha there was like a bowl of rice stuffed inside the chicken, & guess what, barely any leaked out! So it was great!

サムゲタン風の骨付き鶏もも肉とナツメの煮込み（白っぽい脂みたいなのは、カリフラワーが溶けたものなので、見ためよりずっとあっさりめのお味でした）、胡麻をふったサラダ、赤ワイン。