I cooked mandarin peel chicken this week, so now I have an excuse to talk about mandarin peel, 陈皮 chen pi, as a medicinal. It improves digestion and stops metabolic activity from getting stuck. It also relieves some of the consequences of poor digestion, such as what we call dampness. This is a when things are wetter than they should be and can manifest as bloating, feeling full, poor appetite, or loose stools.Chicken cooked with chen pi is delicious – the peel has a slight bitterness that prevents the sweetness from being cloying. The nourishing warming chicken together with moving, damp clearing chen pi strengthens the whole body.
Most Chinese supermarkets sell chen pi, or you can dry your own. I was lucky enough to get some that had been aged for ten years by Richard of Loving Earth that really made this meal special.
This is the recipe I worked with, but I used rice wine instead of wine rice.
http://www.grouprecipes.com/…/szechuan-tangerine-peel-chick…