Prep Time 30mins
Cook Time 1hour
Total Time 1 hour 30 mins
Course Soup
Cuisine Cantonese
Ingredients
- 1 organic chicken, either plain chicken or black bone chicken
- 3 L water
- 1 small thumb ginger
- salt to taste
Herbal mixes
- 2 tbsp. goji berries
- 3 red dates
- 2 honey dates
- 5 pieces codonopsis ,20g
- 3 slices Chinese wild yam ,20g
- 2 tbsp. Astragalus root or 4 pieces ,20g
- 3 pieces Chinese Angelica root ,10g
- 3 pieces Soloman’s seal ,10g
Instructions
- Soak all the herbals except red dates, goji berries and honey dates in a large bowl with enough water. Set aside for 30 minutes.
- Cut chicken into pieces and blanch in a pot of boiling water with 3-4 slices of ginger. This process helps to remove the dirt and blood water from the bones. Pick the chicken pieces out and transfer them to a soup pot.
- Add enough water and the soaked herbal. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 t 40 minutes. Add red dates, goji berries and honey dates, continue simmering another 30 minutes.
- Season with salt before serving.
Note
If you ever tried Chinese herbal soup before, you may not like the smell when purchasing your herbal mix even the smell during the simmer process. But be brave and try it. The final soup will comfort you with a unique sweet taste.
You can make this soup with regular pot, clay pot or high-pressure pot. For high pressure pot, you can slightly reduce the water added as there is less water evaporated during the cooking.
The longer you simmer the soup, the stronger and darker the soup will be.
Soups are quite important and necessary to normal Chinese autumn and winter days. We believe that it is quite dry in those two seasons and thus soups with various herbals are employed to moisten our lung and remove body heat. Those ingredients, which are believed to beneficial to our body, are used most frequently in Cantonese cuisine. Some Cantonese drinks the liquid only. But the meats are quite nourishing too.
