Qigong Food of the Month: Building Your Blood
Shawn Cartwright April 2008
The Liver is strongly associated with the blood in Five Element theory and Spring is a great time to build your blood. The taste associated with the Liver is sour. The following recipe is an example of culturally translating Chinese theory to prepare a dish suitable for western appetites. Try it for a delicious and healthy blood-building dish. Use all natural or organic ingredients where possible.
Ingredients:
1 fresh, whole chicken
1 cup white short grain sticky rice, cooked (red or black rice can be used
if available)
4 oz mushrooms, chopped
¼ lb fresh Italian pork sausage
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 lb fresh spinach, chopped
2 tablespoon butter
Olive oil and vinegar
Herb Seasoning Ingredients:
Mix together in a mortar and pestle: ¼ teaspoon of each: sea-salt, black
pepper, garlic granules, rosemary, and thyme.
Preparation:
Place 1 tablespoon butter in small bowl and set on oven to soften as you
pre-heat oven to 450 F. Place 1 tablespoon butter in skillet and heat on
med-high heat until melted. Add 1 cup of chopped spinach and sauté until
thoroughly wilted. Drain and reserve.
Remove the casing from the sausage and break apart. Brown sausage in a skillet over medium heat. Add chopped garlic, ½ of herb seasoning, and chopped mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms reduced. Add cooked spinach and rice mix thoroughly. Remove from heat and reserve.
Prepare chicken by thoroughly washing with warm water. (Optional: you may scrub inside and out with course sea-salt) Stuff chicken with rice and sausage stuffing until it is no more than ½ full. Do not overstuff. Rub outside of chicken with softened butter and coat with remaining herb seasoning. Place in roasting pan in roast in the oven. Reduce oven setting to 350 F and roast until done, about 1.5 to 2 hours.
Serve with a chopped spinach salad drizzled with olive oil and red-wine vinegar. Enjoy with something young and tart, perhaps a Beaujolais. Feeds two hungry beasts or four people.
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If you prefer a dish a little more “Chinese” then do the following: Wrap the rice stuffing in lotus leaves and steam. Roast the chicken by itself until it is crispy then chop, bone and all, with a big clever. Be careful to spit out the bones when eating! Feed the salad to your pet rabbit.
