Medicine and food both have four characters (cold, hot, warm and cool) and five tastes (sour, bitter, sweet, spicy and salty). When cooking medicated cuisines, one should realize “four characters” are the foundation of medicine and food, and “five tastes” are functions of people’s body. Good taste should also be taken into account when making medicated cuisines.

 

 

Almost all food ingredients can be used to cook medicated cuisines. In addition, some medicine is needed. No matter what kind of medicated cuisine it is, condiments must be used including ginger, garlic, pepper, vinegar, sugar, balm and scallion.

 

 

The most common ways to cook medicated cuisines are stewing, braising, simmering, steaming, boiling, decocting, scrambling and frying. Different ways are used to cook according to the texture and flavor of ingredients. For mild and fragrant ingredients, it is better to be cooked for a short time; while those heavy-flavored and greasy ingredients are better to be stewed, simmered or steamed for a long time.

 

 

Ingredients: yam, white sugar, ginkgo flesh, sugar sweet-scented osmanthus, sweet jujube paste, water starch, red and green candied fruit and lard. Characteristics: this medicated cuisine looks like real peaches with a magnificent posture of “wintersweet”. It tastes soft and delicious.

 

Effect: the Chinese yam is good for the spleen and ginkgo is good for the lungs. This cuisine is very beneficiary for those who have suffered from cold for a long time. It can also improve digestion if healthy people have this cuisine.

Chicken steamed with gastrodia elata

 

Ingredients: hen, gastrodia elata, pepper, ham, rice wine, mushroom, scallion, winter bamboo shoots, ginger, chicken consommé, aginomoto and fine salt.

 

Characteristics: this cuisine tastes salty and delicious. With chicken and gastrodia elata steamed together, the broth boasts plant fragrance and mellow chicken soup. It is very popular among people.

 

Effect: Containing vitamin A and trace alkaloids, this medicated cuisine is very nutritious and particularly helpful for extinguishing liver-wind and relieving spasms and pain.