Explained: Ginseng
Explained: Ginseng (ren shen / 人参)
What is it?
Ginseng is part medicine, part ingredient. In Chinese culture, it’s revered and known as the ‘king of herbs’ and yet only makes its way into a few dishes, usually soups or teas. The leaves are discarded and only the gnarly root is used, sometimes fresh, but more often dried. Asian ginseng (or Panax Ginseng, different from American Ginseng) is usually sold whole in China, and when I’ve used it in cooking, a whole root is needed. They can be tiny (6-8cm) or larger (30-40cm).
In soups, ginseng imparts a subtle flavour, a bit bitter, earthy and sweet. In dishes like Ginseng Chicken, it’s paired with other medicinal flavours, so the flavour is harder to distinguish.
Where’s it from?
Chinese Ginseng is native to the mountainous regions of Northern China, with the best roots coming from the Changbai Mountains along the border of North Korea in Jilin. Wild ginseng was traditionally hand-picked by foragers, but in recent years it has become rare due to over-harvesting, and as such is extraordinarily expensive. Most ginseng is now cultivated in the same region and grown in half the time. Many people believe that wild ginseng roots are more potent, but even if you had the means to buy wild, it’s somewhat environmentally irresponsible these days.
All ginseng is sought after. I’d hazard a guess that if you rooted around in most older Chinese people’s medicine cabinet, you’d find a dried root or two of ginseng.
What’s it used for?
Ginseng has more medicinal uses than culinary. However, it’s impossible to fully understand Chinese cuisine without also understanding the fundamentals of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
In Traditional Chinese Medicine , almost all foods and spices play a part in balancing the body, either by ‘heating’, ‘cooling’, ‘drying’ or ‘dampening’. An imbalance of one is corrected by eating more or less of certain foods. Ginseng is sometimes misunderstood as a panacea for all ailments, and indeed, it is the strongest herb for increasing qi (your body’s life force) but in TCM, Asian ginseng is used to ‘heat’ the body, with a particular focus on the heart, lungs or spleen. Thus, it can reduce stress, increase energy, and assist with breathing related problems.
Chefs in China were traditionally seen as part doctors, tasked with creating dishes that were put together to heal and nourish, as well as taste good. This holistic approach used in China for thousands of years is slowly being recognised in the West. After decades of convenience food, ultra processing and dangerous diets, nutrition researchers such as Tim Spector and Chris Van Tulleken (among many many others) are promoting food as the key to disease prevention not that dissimilar from TCM.
What to cook?
The most famous dish using ginseng is Ginseng Chicken Soup, a dish from both Korean cooking and Chinese. However, in Chinese cooking, ginseng is only one of the ingredients. Goji berries, jujube, astragalus and angelica root all sit alongside it to promote a warming and restorative broth full of energy-giving ingredients.
Other dishes I know of are all teas or variations on soups, often pairing ginseng with jujube, snow fungus, or goji berries. In modern twists, I’ve started to see ginseng paired with fruit in deserts, oatmeals, porridges and smoothies.