But would you give it a go?

When chef Amorelle Dempster stepped off the plane from China, after attending the Slow Food International Conference, she couldn’t wait to bring a touch of traditional Asian cuisine back to Maitland.

She is an avid supporter of broth dishes, and promises her Asian inspired chicken and duck broth with noodles and wontons will delight the senses. 

“The Chinese eat a lot of broth, they eat it morning, noon and night, and it’s full of nutrition and it’s full of flavour,” she said. 

“The best way to make a broth and make it really tasty and nutritious is to start with a good free range, pasture raised chicken.”

Ms Dempster favours the pasture-raised Little Hill Farm chickens that producer Kelly Eaton brings to sell at the Slow Food Earth Market in The Levee. 

They roam the paddocks and live longer than meat birds found in the supermarket. 

“Once you thaw it out you put it into your boiling stock to cook it and to poach it,” she said.

Then she adds some shallots, and some Sichuan peppercorns, which she brought back from China – legally, of course. 

The peppercorns, which are also known as Szechuan peppercorns but aren’t actually from a peppercorn tree, boast an iconic flavour.

They are the dried outer husks of the ash shrub – a prickly variety found in the Sichuan province. 

“The Sichuan province are famous for these hot, tingly almost, peppercorns … I also got some green ones from the spice market and they give off a very fresh smell as well – you can smell that beautiful fragrance,” she said. 

“To finish the soup I’ve made some duck wontons, I’ve poached the duck similarly to the chicken so I can use the duck meat and the duck stock. To the duck meat I’ve added some shallots, some ginger, some pepper, some Sichuan peppercorns, and some Chinese five-spice, which has star anise in it and gives it that lovely, fragrant taste.”

The wontons come together easily.

“Put a little bit in the middle, wet the edges and fold them in,” she says. “It’s just like a little money bag.”

Then it’s time to put them in the duck stock, and when they come to the surface they are ready to enjoy.

Toss the wontons through some sesame oil and serve with chicken broth, strips of chicken, glass noodles, and spinach that has been stripped.