Homemade Foochow Rice Wine

Glad that my mum came over for a visit. Weather wise not that great, as it has been really windy and wet this week....unpredictable weather really. Never the less, we still manage to do little of this and that.
On Saturday, we went to farmer's market to buy some local produce. We bought some early carrots, which we then steamed and they tasted so tender and sweet.
Today on the way back from town, we stopped by the local strawberry farm just to check if PYO (pick your own) fruits season has even started......well have to wait for another 2 weeks. However they've early strawberries that they harvested from their farm for sales. Not to bad for 2.3kgs of strawberries for 6 quids. Red, plump, juicy and succulent strawberries , one can only imagine......

eaten with cream............hmnnnnnnn.......

One of the specialities of Foochow dish is chicken cook in homemade rice wine. This dish is commonly served to women in their confinement. It deem to help blood circulation and also heat up the body. I've yearning[note: I by no means in confiment, hehehehe] to have this dish for a year now since I don't even know how to make the wine in the first place. Having my mum here would be an excellent opportunity to learn how to make it. Great!

Cooked glutinous rice

Blended wine biscuit and red rice

Homemade Foochow Rice Wine
Ingredients

• 1 kilos of glutinous rice
• water (cover the rice around 1.5inches from rice surface)
• 1 wine biscuit + 250gm red rice (blend them together)
• 1 big glass container that can easily fit 3 litres of volume
  

1. Cook the glutinous rice in rice cooker. Once cooked, set aside and let it cool.
2. Once cool, mix the glutinous rice with blended wine biscuit, red rice and scoop it into the glass container.
   
3. Seal the container and set aside.
4. Within 24-48hrs, the fermentation process will begin. Use a clean and dry chopstick to stir and mix after 48hrs. Then after every 2-3days check and stir again.
5. Then after 30days, the wine is ready for use in cooking.
6. Please note that the whole process require clean and dry utensils, else it may turn the wine bad and has to be thrown away.

Well keep my finger crossed, I will have rice wine chicken during midsummer :-)






And here May's bloom from my garden, tall lupins and mixed color ranunculus.