Herbs make good dishes
Recipe #20: green bell peppers with goji berries and chicken

Few Chinese people don't know about the goji berry.

In Chinese herbal medicine, most of them are look black, taste bitter, and seem horrible, but goji berries are an exception. Any Chinese medicine that use goji in its recipe will taste much better.

Not only have gojis been in use for thousands of years because of their health benefits for the body system. After research by Western nutritionists, gojis have been discovred to hold antioxidizing properties. Nowadays gojis are popular in natural food stores. In fact, we have a few goji trees in our backyard. Whether eaten raw or used in soups after being dried, gojis taste very good. I enjoy any dish that use gojis, since it sweetens the taste.

Indgredients

1. 2 green bell peppers
2. 1/2 c. chicken breast
(diced or stripped)
3. 1 Tbsp. dried goji berreis
4. 1 1/2 Tbsp. cooking oil
5. 1/2 tsp. salt
6. 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
7. 1 tps. cooking wine
8. 2 tsp. corn starch
9. 1 Tbsp. hot water
10. salt to taste

Directions

1. Remove seeds from green bell pepper and cut into 1/2" x 1/2" pieces.
2. Marinate chicken in mix of soy sauce, cooking wine and corn starch
3. Wash goji berries and drain; soak in 1 Tbsp. of hot water
4. In a saucepan, after oil is hot, add chicken to stir-fry until medium well. Set aside.
5. Add green bell peppers into remaining oil and continue stir-frying for about three minutes.
6. Add the goji (along with the water) into the saucepan. Stir well and put chicken back in.
7. If needed, add more hot water. Stir-fry until chicken is fully cooked. This should take about one to two minutes.
8. Add salt.

Tips

1. You must stir-fry the chicken first; this allows the chicken to remain tender.
2. Alternatively, you can cook the peppers to medium well, and remove them. Afterwards, stir-fry the chicken until it is almost done, and return the peppers. These two methods have the same result, but it's easier to remove the chicken. Many cooks do not know this technique, so the meat is very tough.
3. The reason for retaining the water with the goji is because 1) it carries the sweet taste of the goji, and 2) it helps cook the peppers faster, retaining the crispiness and the nutrition.