GINGKO NUT CHICKEN SOUP

Pour kicap (soy sauce) into the milk to turn it into soy milk to feed  it to the chicken that plays with onions and rolls in rolled oats.

Which translates to :

Kicap (soy sauce)
Milk
Soy milk
Chicken
Onion
Rolled oats

That was my grocery list memorized according to Kevin Trudeau's mega memorizng method that I learnt years ago when I thought I still had one (a memory).

It took me a good 3 minutes of hard concentration to come up with that useful utter nonsense. It's hard work.

Which translates to :

I have very little willing memory.

So when Terri of Hunger hunger had so generously given me some gingko nuts when we met on her way home from China I thought they would make lovely plugs for all those holes that my brain has been complaining about.

I have made the soup three times since. It is simply chicken broth cooked with some ginger, any kind of vegetable, some tofu and of course the memory enhancing gingko nuts. A simple, light and healthy soup with a slight bitter undertone from the gingko nuts. All in all quite lovely. And I have finished the batch of nuts that Terri had given me.

When I first began cracking the shell, ejecting the nutmeat, blanching the nutmeat in hot boiling water to ease the skinning of the thin brown skin, splitting the nuts length wise to remove the bitter young shoot within, I found it more fiddly then I had expected. But I was determined to make it.

Eventually, as the following batch of nuts sat and waited their turn over the next few days, ejecting and peeling them became much easier. Terri had also told me that it was not necessary to rid it of the bitter shoot within. But being rather bitter intolerant I thought it would be better if I did.

The gingko nuts were very tender when cooked. They were rather creamy and soft and rather bland with a slight bitter edge to it.

The soup was very easy to make. I have adapted it from a recipe for a lovely clear chicken soup with leeks from a Vogue Travel and Entertainment magazine.

Please note that the gingko nut is toxic if eaten raw. It must be cooked.

The recipe................ serves about 4

1 medium free range chicken (kampung chicken), whole
3 slices ginger
leeks, white part trimmed to 1 cm lengths and green part just cut roughly, washed and rinsed well

1 large onion, peeled
1 small carrot

1 cake tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes
10 -12 gingko nuts, shell cracked, brown skin peeled and bitter shoot removed, if preferred

Place whole chicken into a pot large enough for it. Cover with water. Put in the ginger, whole onion, and washed green part of the leeks and a carrot.


Bring to a boil and then simmer for 40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Add salt. Remove scum, the green leeks, carrot and onion.

You have basically made a chicken broth.

Remove the chicken, drain well and keep it aside on a board.


Add tofu, the chopped white part of the leeks, prepared gingko nuts and bring the broth to a boil and then simmer very gently for about 10 to 15 minutes. 


Meanwhile, the chicken may be deboned and the meat removed in shreds or it may be cut up into its parts with a pair of kitchen scissors at the leg joints, wing joints and the breasts cut into 2 or 3 parts with a knife. Arrange in serving bowls and pour the soup over the chicken to serve, dividing the tofu, leeks and gingko nuts between the individual bowls.


Serve hot. Food for the brain.