Soupy Chicken Stew

“Chicken Stew with Assorted Root Vegetables for cold rainy days”

This dish is a variation of a stew served at the Soup Spoon restaurant, where I usually have or pack my soupy lunch during rainy days. It was to avoid walking to lunch to unsheltered places on my heels under the rain.

The Tokyo chicken stew soup is one of their popular choices in the Soup Spoon restaurant. I was not sure why is it called Tokyo chicken stew. Perhaps it has some special ingredients from Japan in it, I was not too sure. However, this is surely a delicious stew in clear soup which resembles the chicken noodle soup served in many Western cuisine restaurants. I was very interested to cook this up on my own at home. To please my family, and to save my bucks, too!

Anyway, learned to cook this was certainly a great thing. This is also a crowd pleaser in any occasions, if the popular Asian party dish, curry chicken, isn’t your fave.

Ingredients
A mixture of vegetables:
200 gram of celery, cut into pieces, crosswise
100 gram of white radish, halved lengthwise and cut into thin slices
1 carrot, cut into pieces, crosswise
1/4 piece of bamboo shoot, halved and cut into thin slices
1/2 small root of lotus root (about 5 slices), halved lengthwise and cut into thin slices
5 fresh Shiitake mushroom, trimmed root and cut into small pieces
50 gram of Enoki aka Golden needle mushroom, trimmed root

2 boneless chicken thigh, trimmed fat and skin, cut into chunk pieces, seasoned with 1 tablespoon each of light soy sauce and white pepper, and sprinkle some cornstarch, for at least 15 minutes

600-800ml of water
1 teaspoon of salt

Optional:
1 knob (about 20 gram) of butter with 1 teaspoon of olive oil to sauté all the ingredients before transferring into croak pot

Method
If stew in slow cooker:
1) Place water and all ingredients including chicken thigh and chicken stock cube (except for salt) into croak pot.

2) Place croak pot in slow cooker. Cover pot with lid. Turn on and shift to auto or low mode to let ingredients stew for at least 3 hours or longer.

3) Stir in salt and let it stew for another 10 minutes before heat off. Serve hot.

**If you have time, sauté the chicken thigh followed by mushrooms and vegetables in wok with a knob of butter over medium-high heat, before placing into croak pot to stew. Just to bring out the flavor even better.

If stew on stove:
1) Heat large pot with butter and olive over medium-high fire. Place chicken thigh followed by mushrooms and vegetables into pot to sauté for a minute.

2) Add in water and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat to low fire, cover pot with lid, stew the ingredients for at least 2 hours, or until ingredients are softened. Stir in salt and continue to stew for 10 minutes before heat off. Serve hot.

**If using pressure cooker, stewing time would be shorten to just less than an hour to have the ingredients cooked and softened.

A serving of my chicken stew soup counts about 170kcal.

Tips: If you like it more soupy, or to have it more like a chicken soup dish, increase the amount of water to double.