What you need to know about fresh wolfberries, aka goji or gouqi berries

Wolfberries are the subject of today's post. Fresh ones. I'm probably way ahead of the curve here, as outside of my few secret sources, I've only seen them on our shores dried, when they are uniformly referred to as "goji berries."

However, goji is their Japanese name, and since they are actually grown in China, it seems only fair that they should be more properly referred to as gǒuqǐ 枸杞. Raised mainly in the desert province of Ningxia Hui up near Mongolia and out in Xinjiang near the western borderlands with Central Asia, gouqi are regarded as veritable elixirs of good health in Chinese medicine and are often combined with other herbal ingredients to provide a touch of sweetness and flavor to the mix. 

Extravagantly decorated waffle

But as good as those dried ones are, nothing beats a fresh wolfberry. These look and taste completely different from their dried compatriots - sort of the way in which a fresh, juicy grape seems totally unrelated to a raisin. A very thin skin covers a pulpy fruit filled with a spatter of really tiny seeds. Think of a Roma tomato reduced to the size of pine nut. And that makes a whole lot of sense, as like the tomato this is a member of the nightshade family. But unlike a tomato, these are deliciously sweet with a flavor unlike any other fruit I've ever tried. Lightly fragrant, they pop in your mouth and release all their juices with the gentlest pressure.

Chiaying & her berries

My friend Chiaying Fong was celebrating her bumper crop the other day and gave me a lovely basketful of these transient fall treasures. I was stunned at her generosity and happily accepted this amazing gift. They found their way onto morning waffles with just some butter nestled underneath them, and the results were astoundingly good.

So, what to do until that fine day when we can at the very least hunt them down in a farmer's market? 

Well, they are easy to grow if you live in a relatively dry area and if you can get ahold of cuttings from a friend. (Yet another great reason to have lots of Chinese friends, as if you needed another excuse.)

Chiaying's hubby hard at work

I did just that a couple of years ago and now have some lovely berries of my own growing on the big, leafy bushes that go well with just about any planting scheme. The berries hang down from the arching stems like little rubies, and they are ready when they turn bright scarlet.

To make your very own gouqi plantation, just strip the leaves off of the base of some 2-inch stems with a few leaves left growing on the top, stick them into some rooting medium like Perlite or a loose potting soil, keep them watered, and soon you'll have a whole bunch of these fabulous plants. If you have the patience, you can also try growing them from seed - I'd suggest soaking a couple of the little fruits in warm water (preferably organic and nicely soft, so that they are of the best quality) until plump, and then you can carefully squeeze or scoop out the seedy pulp. You might even want to chill the dried seeds for a couple of months in the refrigerator to help fool them into thinking that winter has come and gone, and then sow them in light potting soil once the weather warms.

Gouqi in my yard

Little purple blossoms of Lycium barbarum cover the branches before they set fruit, so there's this gorgeous progression of colors. The thin leaves drop off in winter, which is an excellent time to trim them up a bit so that they bush out with abandon in spring. Pot up the trimmings and make more plants and friends that way - at least, that's my suggestion.

Do note that there is another type of wolfberry that you can get in Chinese grocery stores from summer up until frost: One with a wider leaf that is grown mainly for its tender leaves (gǒuqǐyè 枸杞葉, or Lycium chinense), although I've heard that its fruits can be just as good as L. barbarum. Of course, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from rooting these stems, and nothing gets wasted that way, either.

Stem as needed, rinse, & eat

These are leaves are really easy to use: just strip the leaves off of the stems, soak them in ice water for an hour or so to freshen them up and remove some of the bitterness, and then use in stir-fries or soups like any other leafy vegetable, where they should be added at the last minute to preserve their color and texture. 

To prepare fresh wolfberries, simply pull off any stems still sticking into the fruit, rinse in a colander, and shake dry. If you plan to hold the little fruits for a day or two in the fridge, then store them dry in a plastic bag, as water will make them rot faster. 

Wolfberries can be used much like any other fragile, ripe berry, but keep in mind that they are not as sharply sweet as, say, raspberries or blackberries, nor as highly flavorful as tomatoes. That - and their tiny seeds - is why they never appear in pies or get turned into sauces. Instead, the traditional Chinese way of cooking them is limited to adding the ripe fruits to austere stir-fries, especially things like celery, lily bulbs, and wolfberry leaves, where they won't be overwhelmed by other flavors and textures.

Berries arrayed on the stems

That being said, 99% of the time you are only going to be able to get your hands on the dried berries. But keep your eyes out for Chinese friends with prolific wolfberry patches growing in their back yards. Ask for a taste of those fresh gouqi fruits and then get a couple of cuttings. Growing impossible-to-find produce is one of the best reasons to have a yard, in my personal opinion!

Alas, until you have your own stellar crop waiting for you on the counter, you'll have to settle for dried berries, which really are quite tasty, of course. Here's a good way to turn those dried fruits into a tonic that is fabulous either hot or cold.

Wolfberry and chrysanthemum tea

Júhuā gǒuqǐ chá 菊花枸杞茶

All over China

Makes 1 pot

2 tablespoons dried wolfberries

3 to 4 tablespoons Hangzhou dried chrysanthemums (see next week's post)

Boiling water, as needed

Honey to taste, optional

Your ingredients

1. Place the wolfberries and chrysanthemums in a fine sieve and rinse them with some boiling water to remove any dust. Place the doused ingredients into a teapot.

2. Fill the pot with water that has come to a full boil and then rested for about 5 minutes, which will reduce the temperature a bit and so help preserve the flavors. Cover the pot and let the two ingredients seep for another 5 minutes or so, until the berries and flowers are plump. Add honey to taste, if you like. You can add water to the pot probably one more time before the flavor peters out.

Do note that you can adjust the ratios of the berries and blossoms here as you like. Or, just leave out one or the other. It will taste good no matter what you do.

Dining on lily bulbs Buddhist style

Of all the many dishes we ate in lovely Lanzhou in Gansu province – right at the headwaters of the Yellow River – this was the most memorable. Just before we set sail to visit a Buddhist shrine upriver, we ate at a Buddhist restaurant. Everything was vegetarian, of course, but even more importantly everything was 素 sù, the Chinese word for super-strict vegetarian that includes no garlic or chilies or onions or ginger or anything else that could be considered an addictive flavor.

Now, I am a proud chilihead, and I don’t get that shaky when deprived of my peppers, as long as it’s not more than a day or two. Really, I’m fine. And yet, could see how someone striving for Nirvana would want to put any earthly desires to one side, including all of the aromatics I reach for automatically whenever I’m cooking.

Be that as it may, dishes that highlight only the natural flavors of a few ingredients can sometimes be magical. Take this one, for example. It is simple in every way and yet quite beautiful, the bright red berries shining against the ivory petals of the lily bulbs. They glisten with only a bare sheen of oil, and a subtle shake of salt provides the barest whisper of savoriness against the delicate sour and sweet notes.

The bulbs all cleaned up & snowy

The most difficult ingredient to find here are the lily bulbs. They come into season only in late fall and are imported from Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province. Yes, they are available dried, but don’t even think about using them here because dried bulbs are starchy and flat-tasting. 

If you see the fresh ones in a Chinese market any time of the year, snap as many of them up as you can. Then, use half for this dish and plant the other half… they grow easily in almost any temperate climate, and soon you will be able to revel in them whenever you choose.

Lily bulbs and wolfberries 
Bǎihé chǎo gōuqĭ 百合炒枸杞 

Gansu
Serves 4 to 6 

¼ cup organic dried wolfberries (gouqi or goji, see Tips)

Boiling water as needed

4 fresh Lanzhou lily bulbs, about 10 to 12 ounces total (see Tips)

1 tablespoon fresh peanut or vegetable oil

½ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

1. Place the wolfberries in a medium heatproof bowl and cover them with boiling water. Let the berries plump up while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

The good, bad, & ugly

2. Prepare the lily bulbs by first using a paring knife to trim off any roots or discolored areas. Working on one bulb at a time, hold it over a colander and gently peel off the “petals” of the lily bulb until you cannot peel off any more; cut the center in half or quarters. Repeat with the other bulbs until they are all separated into petals. Rinse the petals under cool running water and lightly toss them over the sink to remove most of the water. Pick over the petals and nip off any discolored bits.

3. Drain the wolfberries, straining out the liquid into a measuring cup, and if you have less than ¼ cup of the soaking liquid, add just enough water to reach that mark.

4. Heat the oil in a wok over high heat and add the salt. Swirl the wok around to melt the salt and then add the wolfberries, the soaking liquid, and the lily bulb petals. Quickly stir-fry them over high heat only until the liquid boils. Taste one of the petals: it should be cooked and sweet but still crisp. Serve hot or warm.

Tips

Do not use any other variety of lily bulb for this dish other than those that come from Lanzhou lilies, as not all lilies are edible. The Latin name for the Lanzhou lily is Lilium davidii, and they look very much like tiger lilies when in bloom.

Select the most perfect ones you can

Most of these lily bulbs will be sold in small plastic bags, as shown to the right. Look at them carefully through the tiny window and select only those that are pure white; less pretty ones will be jammed into the back of the bag out of sight, of course, but do the best you can. I always buy more than I need, as noted above in the headnotes, both to compensate for the inevitable bad bulb or two, and also to have more to plant.

Dried lily bulb petals are also sold in Chinese markets, but please do not use them here! They turn starchy and tasteless when they are dried, which is fine for slow-cooked things, but here the crunch and the sweetness of the fresh bulbs are absolutely essential.

Wolfberries are called gouqi in Chinese and goji in Japanese. Use caution when purchasing them from Chinese markets, as some are dyed red or have been subjected to heavy pesticides or pollution.

I prefer to get my gouqi from either a good Chinese herbalist or from reputable health food stores. Organic wolfberries are becoming increasingly available, too.

Select berries that are plump, the color of ripe persimmons, and as large as possible. Check for insect infestation by shaking the bag around, and discard any that show holes or that have dark, round dust (= insect poop) at the bottom. Store them in a freezer bag in the freezer if you are not using them within a month or two, as this will keep them fresh.

The case of the Chinese gooseberry

From the name most commonly associated with these little Wookie lookalikes -- the kiwi fruit -- you would think that they originally came from New Zealand. 

However, long before this adopted name, they were called Chinese gooseberries, because their homeland is in the tropical reaches of southern China. 

In their native land, they are the national fruit, which is really saying something, as so many of the world's citrus varieties, as well as apricots, peaches, loquats, pears, walnuts, and my beloved lychees, hail from ancient China. 

Scoop out the flesh with a spoon

You'd never know that from its Chinese name, though. In Taiwan, where the kiwi has become pretty popular, the fruit's name is nothing more than a transliteration of "kiwi": qiyiguo, which literally means strange or bizarre fruit. I think that the little fuzzballs have managed to overcome this poor marketing ploy quite admirably, and a lot of that has to do with their beautiful jade-hued flesh, a color that is very striking in a fruit bowl or as a garnish.

But like a gorgeous model who also can talk eloquently on The Brothers Karamazov, this fruit's long term appeal lies beneath the surface. They taste like a cross between, yes, a gooseberry and a peach. I personally like the tart layer in its flavor, as it sets off the perfume and luscious sweetness, keeping them from being at all cloying.

And then there are the seeds. Forming a stunning ebony ring around the white, edible center, they are delicately crunchy without drawing too much attention to themselves. They  perfectly set off the little rays of lighter flesh that intersect the darker green like a starburst. 

Pull off the tough ends with the skin

How do you eat them, then? My favorite way is to cut them across at the equator and run a thin metal spoon between the flesh and the skin. This results in the least waste, and is quite a fast way to deal with them. Both the stem and blossom ends are easily pulled off if the fruit is perfectly ripe (see Tips), but can be dug out if the fruit is still slightly underripe. After that, you can slice or dice them, eat them as they are, or add them to desserts.

Do be aware that kiwis possess high levels of enzymes that curdle milk and tenderize meat, and they might cause a reaction in folks who are allergic to pineapples, papayas, and latex. Like pineapples, you can't add raw kiwis to gelatin-based desserts, as it inhibits any gelling.

Aside from enjoying them freshly released from their little hair suits, I like them tossed with a couple of Chinese favorites that don't get enough attention in the West: lacy white "snow ear" fungus and wolfberries (also called goji or gouqi berries), both of which were recently introduced in a recipe for Sweet Stuffed Asian Pears, among other places here. 

Plumped up snow ear

Wolfberries are lovely in and of themselves, and I toss them with considerable abandon into anything -- sweet or savory -- that could benefit from their deep red color and tartly raisin-like taste. They, like the kiwis, are very high in vitamins, making them both healthy and delicious. The other main component, the snow ear fungus, is there mainly for texture. It lightens the fruits and carries the flavors of the gentle sauce in between each morsel. 

This is yet another example of the Chinese concept of balance. Red against green, raw with cooked, tart with sweet, spicy against fruity... and yet they all form a harmonious whole.

Good for the end of a family meal or even for company, this is easy and inexpensive and just right for this time of the year when we're still waiting for the first fruits of summer to show up.


Kiwi, wolfberry and snow ear compote 
Tangzhu qiyiguo gouqi xue'er   糖煮奇異果枸杞雪耳 
All over China
Serves 4 to 6 as a dessert, 2 to 3 as a snack

1 large dried "snow ear" fungus
Boiling water, as needed
2 cups filtered water
1 walnut-sized piece of rock sugar, or honey or other sweetener to taste
½ teaspoon sea salt
3 thin slices fresh ginger

Chinese wolfberries

½ cup Chinese wolfberries (see Tips)
5 ripe kiwi fruits

1. Place the snow ear fungus in a heatproof work bowl and cover it with boiling water. When it has plumped up, use scissors or a paring knife to trim off any hard or brownish areas. Separate it into "petals," rinse to remove any debris, and dry in colander. 

2. Pour the 2 cups water into a saucepan; add the sugar, salt, and ginger, and bring to a boil. Rinse the wolfberries and add them to the pan along with the snow ear fungus. Simmer these until the liquid has been reduced to about a half cup, at which time the fungus should be soft and supple, and the wolfberries plump and tender. Remove the pan from the stove and allow the compote to come to room temperature.

3. Peel the kiwi fruits and cut each one into large dice, about 16 pieces. Add the kiwi to the cooled compote, cover, and refrigerate until completely chilled. Serve in small bowls.

Add salt and sugar

Tips

The best and freshest wolfberries and snow ear fungus will be found in Chinese herbal or specialty dry goods shops. Look for plump specimens that have no sign of deterioration or bugs. Ask the shopkeeper for help, as the owner will usually be more than happy to help customers find the right things. If not, find another shop.

Kiwis usually are sold barely ripe and need a couple of days to fully ripen. I like mine when the skins start to barely shrivel, at which point you'll feel a gentle "give" in the fruit that tells you it has ripened enough to begin softening. 

You can speed this up by putting the kiwis in a paper bag with an apple, as the apple's ethylene gas will jump start the ripening action. And, if you don't want to use the ripened kiwis right away, place them in an air-tight container and refrigerate, as any other ripening produce in the fridge might stimulate further ripening and then, alas, rot.

Twelfth Month congee

China's traditional year is set to the natural rhythms of the world. Divided into twelve lunar months and 24 solar seasons, it is surprisingly accurate. I remember how one of them, Startled Insects or Jingzhe, made this so clear.

We were living in the outskirts of Taipei in the hot springs area called New Beitou. Back then, the area was still relatively undeveloped, and so some wild friends took up residence around our little home. A huge toad lived in our teeny back yard and took care of all the roaches that crossed his path, leaving little roach mummies rolling around on the concrete. A solitary bat would hand upside-down during the day behind a board propped against the wall and always come home at the sign of first light. A praying mantis made its home in the big poinsettia tree (yes) that grew by our front gate. 

Dried longans

Geckos made the fuse box by the front window their very own elephant graveyard, as that is where they went to die. It was filled with a deep layer of filagree skeletons, and we watched one night as a weak, skinny gecko slowly made its way up and into the crack by the wooden fuse box door. My husband is a dedicated animal lover, and he tried to redirect the old gecko away from its grave, but the little guy was determined, so it went, step by painful step, up to join its clan.

Which leads back in a roundabout way to the lunar calendar. I was sweeping the leaves off of the moss ground in our little front yard one morning before going to work and noticed the trilling of katydids, a sound that had been absent over the length of Taipei's long and dreary winter. Checking the calendar inside, it was the beginning of Startled Insects, a day that usually lands in early March and explains by its name that bugs are awakened at this time out of their long slumber by thunder and spring rains. 

We had no unusual storms then to speak of that I can remember, but we certainly did have our little insect friends back on the scene again. And that was the beginning of my fascination with the Chinese lunar calendar.

Korean mixed rice & beans

But it is still winter now by any calendar's calculation. The last month before Chinese New Year (which falls on January 23rd this year) is called Layue; this is when we have the two-week seasons called Slight Frostiness (Xiaohan) and Great Frostiness (Dahan). Nurturing foods are most welcome on these chilly days, and today's toe-warming congee is so perfect for this time of year that that it is even named after the month: Labazhou (congee for the eighth day of the Twelfth Month).  

You can vary the ingredients as you please (no need to be a stickler about the number eight, really), the only real requirement being that the ingredients be fresh and there be a nice balance of grain, beans, nuts, and dried fruit. If you overload it with the dried fruit, for example, it becomes too sweet and jammy. So clean out your cupboards, see what is already there, and toss in whatever you like, keeping the ratio more or less 3 parts grain : 1 part beans : 1 part nuts and seeds : 2 parts dried fruit.

Soak all of the grains, beans, and nuts overnight so that they plump up and cook more quickly. Things like peanuts and dried lotus seeds, for example, take a very long time to cook until they are just barely soft, so consider cooking them separately.  

Leftovers can be stored in the fridge, and this is one of those times when a microwave is indispensable, because if you boil the congee again, it tends to cook down into a paste; a good alternative would be steaming, as this too doesn't give the grains and beans the chance to break down further.

Twelfth Month congee can be served for breakfast or late at night; it is too filling and sweet for other times of the day, unless you have elderly folks or little children in need of something hot and comforting. 


Twelfth Month congee 
Labazhou 臘八粥

Plumped up ingredients

All over China
Serves 4 to 6 generously

1 cup rice or mixed-grain rice (see Tips)
3 tablespoons millet or steel cut oatmeal or other grains
3 tablespoons hulled sunflower seeds or other seeds
3 tablespoons mung (green) beans
3 tablespoons adzuki or other beans
3 tablespoons broken walnuts or other nuts
3 tablespoons skinned peanuts
20 dried lotus seeds, optional  (see Tips)
9 cups filtered water, plus more as needed
12 Chinese dates (jujubes), pitted and cut in half
4 tablespoons goqi (goji or wolfberries), or a handful of dried pitted longan (see Tips)
Brown or rock sugar to taste
Dash of sea salt
Toasted sesame seeds, optional

Perfect consistency

1. Start this at least 10 hours before you want to serve it. Rinse the rice, sunflower seeds, beans, and walnuts, place in a large saucepan, and cover them with water by about 1 inch. Rinse the peanuts and lotus seeds and place them in a small saucepan before covering them with water. Let both pans sit overnight to plump up the ingredients, and then drain off the water before adding about 7 cups filtered water to the large saucepan and about 2 cups to the smaller one. Rinse the dried fruit.

2. Bring both pans to a boil and simmer them until the beans are soft in the large saucepan and both the peanuts and lotus seeds are soft in the other; the larger saucepan will probably be done first. At this point, add the dried fruit to the smaller pan and add enough water to cover; bring the smaller pan to a boil and then lower it again to a simmer so that the fruits have time to plump up without disintegrating. When cooked but not mushy, combine the two and add sugar to taste, as well as a little salt. Slowly simmer the congee until the sugar is melted; taste and adjust the sweetness, if necessary.

3. Serve with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds on top, if you wish; it's not necessary, but it adds another layer of flavor to this delicious congee.

The little green tongue = bitterness

Tips

Cook the peanuts and lotus seeds separately because they take much longer than the other ingredients.

Add the dried fruits to the peanuts and lotus seeds later on so that they stay whole and don't mush up.

Be sure and open each softened lotus seed, as they often have bitter green sprouts inside. Just pinch off the green shoot and toss it away.

Korean markets often sell a mixture of rice and beans that is great for labazhou because half of your work is already done for you. (See the photo above.)

Feel free to experiment with the ingredients, using raisins and dried cranberries, for example, instead of some or all of the dried fruit. Cashews and almonds are delicious in here. And sweetening it with honey adds a completely different aroma to the final dish.

Dried longans (see photo above) lend a wonderful perfume and are worth seeking out. The fruit looks a little like a dried lychee, and when fresh they share a certain similarity, as both have white flesh surrounding a black seed and encased in a thin shell. Longan shells, though, are tan rather than the red of fresh lychees, and when dried the flesh turns into chewy little nuggets. All they need is a soaking in boiling water to wake them up.

Drunken chicken

Shanghainese food -- a particularly spectacular part of that lovely kaleidoscope of Chinese cuisine that centers in fabulous Jiangsu province at the mouth of the Yangtze River -- has been a love of mine ever since my boss at the museum plunked me down at a groaning banquet table in Taipei and said, "Eat."

He too was from East China, so he knew his way around a Shanghai-style restaurant like it was his own back yard, and we would all end up glassy-eyed and grinning after hours of slowly working our way through what must have been most of that chef's repertoire.

Almost every such banquet started out with something drunken. My favorite was always this Drunken Chicken, although one of my more annoying colleagues would often order things like raw drunken crabs mainly, I think, so that he'd have no competition from me.

Over the years I've tried again and again to perfect this enchanting way to start a meal, and I think I've finally succeeded. Most restaurants I ate at long ago in Taiwan made this dish out of the whole chicken, which meant that there would be lots of dry breast meat or too much undercooked thigh meat with bloody marrow.

This dish, though, really shines when just thigh meat is used, as it lends it an incomparable richness and juiciness. I then throw in a good handful of Chinese wolfberries (aka goji berries), which not only spark up the landscape with lots of color and sweetness, but also lend a nice gel and sheen to the sauce. Keep the skin and bones on during the steaming because you don't want to lose a drop of their flavor and texture.

Wolfberries on the chicken

As with so many of Jiangsu's best dishes, Shaoxing wine is the star of the seasonings here. You don't have to buy an expensive bottle, just whatever's on sale and tastes good. How do you tell if it's any good? Smell it... it should taste distinctly mushroomy, have a good sherry flavor, and give you a nice kick in the pants once it hits home. See the photo in the previous entry for a couple of brands that I often use when cooking. (My favorite comes in a square bottle from Taiwan and has the name TTL stamped on the red label.)

The final secret ingredient here is Vietnamese fish sauce, or nam pla. Not exactly traditional in this part of China, this Chaozhou-style seasoning provides a wonderfully funky undercurrent to the sauce that just doesn't arrive by any other avenue. This is very close to a traditional Chinese ingredient that's called "shrimp oil" (xiayou); the brand with the three blue crabs on it was once recommended to me by a good Vietnamese cook, and I've never looked back.

Serve this dish cold with any other appetizers you like. The picture at the top here shows it with steamed snow peas topped with a roasted sesame dressing. That way there's the boozy, funky, red and white chicken sitting next to the fresh, sweet, nutty peas. Who says you can't have it all?

Drunken chicken
Zui ji  醉雞

Jiangsu
Serves 4 to 6 as an appetizer

4 whole chicken thighs with skin on (organic and free range, of course)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground roasted Sichuan peppercorns, optional but tasty
1 green onion, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 small finger of ginger, thinly sliced
1/2 or so cup chicken stock
1/2 cup Shaoxing rice wine
2 tablespoons Vietnamese fish sauce (see note above)
3 tablespoons Chinese wolfberries (goji berries)
Boiling water as needed

1. Make this the day that you wish to serve it for the best texture; after a day or two in the wine, the chicken flesh will turn powdery. Rinse and pat dry the thighs. Rub the salt and optional Sichuan peppercorns into the skin and flesh of the thighs, add the green onion and ginger to the chicken,  and place everything in a bowl that fits easily in your steamer. Let the thighs marinate in a cool place for half an hour or so. 

2. Place the bowl in the steamer over high heat and steam until done, about 15 minutes. Check to see whether the meat is cooked through by piercing the thickest part of the thighs; the juices should run clear. Remove the bowl from the steamer. Strain and reserve any of the juices. 

Colorful contrasts all around

3. Measure the reserved juices and add enough chicken stock to make about 1 cup. Cut the bones out of the thighs and remove the skin if you want, although the skin will give the dish another layer of texture if you leave it on. Put the chicken in a Ziploc bag and pour in the juices and stock, as well as the rice wine and fish sauce. Place the wolfberries in a heatproof bowl and pour just enough boiling water over them to cover. As soon as they plump up, add the berries and their juice to the chicken, squoosh everything around, and refrigerate the chicken for a few hours and up to 8 hours before serving; longer than that and the chicken turns powdery in texture. When you think of it, shake the bag so that the chicken gets thoroughly saturated with the marinade.

4. To serve, remove the chicken from the marinade and slice into 1/2-inch wide pieces. Arrange these attractively on a plate and scatter the wolfberries over the top. Glaze the chicken with some of the reserved marinade.