Bitter gourd Pineapple Chicken Soup 苦瓜凤梨鸡汤

Bitter gourd pineapple chicken soup is a popular Taiwanese dish serves during summer as the soup has a cooling effect on the body.
Although the bitter gourd, as its name suggested is bitter, it complimented the sweet and a little tangy pineapple well in this soup. With the addition of the spicy bean paste, it helps to enhance the overall flavour of the entire pot of chicken soup 🍜


Servings : 4 persons

Ingredients

180~200g bitter gourd

100~130g honey pineapple chunks

3 slices ginger

8cm dried sole fish (about 1/2 fish)*

300ml water

2 tsp spicy bean paste

2 tbsp rice wine

1/2 cube chicken stock

Salt and sugar to taste

* I used dried sole fish to replace 丁香鱼 in the original recipe.  The small fish resemble small anchovy, or ikan bilis.

Seasoning ingredients

Directions

1. Toast dried sole fish in an oven toaster for about 3 minutes at 150°C, or till fragrant. Set aside.

2. Blanch chicken thighs in hot water for about 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Remove the seeds and pith from the bitter gourd. Cut into diagonal strips.

4. Cut pineapple into thick chunks

 5. Add bitter gourd, toasted sole fish, ginger and water into a rice cooker pot.

Just let the water reaches about 3/4 of the ingredients' height.  In order not to dilute the soup, try not to add too much water in the beginning as the ingredients would drain out juice during cooking.

7. Select "Soup" function and start the prrogram.

8. When the water starts to boil at about 10 to 15th minute,

add in the spicy bean paste,

rice wine,

chicken stock,

and finally the pineapple chunks.

Cover and let the cooking process contiune. Stir the ingredients twice or thrice to ensure even heating.

9. When the countdown timer reads "0:10" add in the sugar and salt to taste. I like it sweet so I added about 1~2 tbsp of raw sugar, and about 1/2 tsp of salt.

10. After the cooking process ends, let the ingredients simmer for about 1 hour in the pot.  This simmering process is optional.

1 hour after simmering

12. Serve with warm rice 🍚😋

The soup would be more oily if cooked with the chicken skin.

Recipe adapted from 健康好簡單-鳳梨苦瓜雞 with appreciation <3

Update: 7 May 2018

Use skinless chicken thighs for a slightly healthier soup :)