This soup has a very distinctive smell and taste of a Chinese medicinal shop. It’s definitely a love or hate initially, but can be acquired. The key ingredient is the “dong quai” or “angelica root” that creates that fragrant (debatable?) scent. I’ve learned to love it after so many years of being in Hong Kong and once you taste the soup, wow!
This soup is the ultimate warming winter hot pot delight. You literally feel yourself getting hot and sweaty after one bowl. It’s literally a powerful tonic that replenishes blood and Qi, improves circulation, and detoxifies the body.
This powerhouse healing ingredient is the key ingredient to your Chinese herbal soup! The dong quai is warm, slightly sweet and slightly bitter, and a common herb used to promote warmth, replenish blood, and replenish yang. This is why it’s such a common ingredient used in post partum and confinement recipes. It’s also commonly used in healing tonics.
I will only use this ingredient for this type of herbal soup as it’s got a very distinct pungent scent and taste. When combined with sweeter ingredients such as red dates and goji berries, it’s really quite delicious!
Cooking Instructions
Add your dried herbal base directly into a pot and add in 3L of cold water
Cover and boil on high heat for 30 minutes.
Cut your chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces
In a shallow pan, put them skin side down to render the fat out of the chicken and crisp up the skin (no oil needed!)
Add salt and garlic to flavour as needed
Once the soup is boiled for 30 minutes, you can move your crispy chicken to the soup. I will usually rinse in warm water first to get rid of the extra oil, bone bits, and debris
Cover and boil on medium for 2 hours (checking that it doesn’t boil over)
At this point your soup is done! You can drink as is or prepare to add your hot pot ingredients
Prepare your hot pot ingredients an add to your soup
Boil on high for 10 minutes
Serve and enjoy!
Drink your soup first with some of the ingredients added. I won’t even begin the hot pot yet and just enjoy a soup as is!
Chef tips!
For your protein, use chicken (or pork). This compliments the herbal base very well versus pork or red meats.
For your hotpot ingredients, use less intense flavor ingredients and ones that will absorb more the flavours of the soup such as leafy light coloured vegetables like napa cabbage or regular cabbage versus choy sum or gailan. Tofu is a great additive as well and fresh mushrooms work well.
You can add udon or vermicelli as part of your meal
If you’re going to cook other meats or seafood, save that for the end as it will change the flavour of the herbal soup
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This soup is ideal for colds, flus and cough. If you’ve got a sore or scratchy throat, achy body, tiredness and/or headache – this soup is for you! From an Eastern perspective, the Chinese don’t recommend drinking chicken soup when you’re sick, which to me, sounds off, but you can’t argue thousands years of tradition through Chinese medicine. My herbalist recommended this relatively “neutral” soup for me and is considered 滋陰 (zī yīn), which means treating yin deficiency by reinforcing body fluid and nourishing the blood. If you look at the herb base, it’s pretty basic and ideal for most soups – the kicker is to add sea whelk (or conch or sea snail). You don’t need to add fresh sea snail (they can get pretty expensive if you buy them live from the wet mart), but definitely add pork. This soup ended up tasting delicious and sets a great base for adding vegetables of your choice – like corn, onions, or chayotes – all neutral vegetables.
What’s involved?
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 2 hours
Total time: 2 hours 15 mins
Serves: 8 bowls
Ingredients
1 pound of pork shank (or pork marrows and bones for confinement)
In a separate pot, blanch both the sea snails and pork in a pot of boiling hot water for at least 5 minute (to remove impurities, fat and scum), remove and set aside 2. Soak all the herbs in warm water for at least 10 minutes and rinse in warm water 3. Boil your soup water 4. When you soup water boils, add all the ingredients together 5. Boil on high for 30 minute and then reduce boil to a medium boil for another 1.5 hours 6. Serve and enjoy!
One of the more affordable seafood you can use for soups is dried sea snail. They come in thin, hard slices and add a sweet, sea-salt taste to the soup (similar to dried conpoys). Plus, these things are storage friendly and can be stored in your freezer or fridge for up to 6 months.
A typical neutral soup base for Chinese soups. The dried sea snails are interchangeable with dried conpoys, which is a great substitute if you can’t find sea snails. The dried versions produce similar tastes to the soup as they are both seafood and go through similar drying processes.
Tea Name: Cooling Snow Pears and Apples in a Chrysanthemum Tea Traditional Chinese Name: 雪梨蘋果菊花清熱茶 (xuě lí píng guǒ jú huā qīng rè chá) Nature: Cooling Taste: Sweet and sour (You can read this article on the impact on your body of different food tastes!) For more...
Sauce Name: Japanese inspired vinaigrette (for beef carpaccio or salads or as an appetizers) Nature: Warm (which is primarily the vinegar) Taste: Sour and bitter and slightly sweet Targets: Liver and stomach For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.Yes! ...
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Soup Name: Korean Kimchi and Tofu Jjigae (Soup) Nature: Cool (although could be warmer depending on how spicy you make it, but this is driven by the cooling white radish and tofu) Taste: Sweet, Salty For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.I know there's a...
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Soup Name: Green radish with carrots & corn in a Chinese Herbal Pork Broth Traditional Chinese Name: 紅青蘿蔔湯 (hóng qing luóbo tang) Nature: Cooling Taste: Sweet and savory For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.My parents came home last night from a cruise...
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Tea Name: The Salted Orange Traditional Chinese Name: 鹽蒸橙子 (yán zhēng chéngzi) Nature: warm Taste: sweet, salty For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.What? Salted oranges? Let's start by saying that if you see a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor (and even...
This ingredient is considered as part of the Chinese medicine repertoire (although more specifically, it is the Cistanche deserticola)
It is a desert plant (shrub like which grows from 2-6 feet tall) with an usual behavior in that it extracts nutrients and water from plants around it (in order to grow)
The plant is harvested in the Spring (before it is able to sprout) by slicing its stem and it is dried and processed for Chinese medicine
The plant that produces this ingredient is labeled as “endangered” and harvesting is being monitored
Cistanche is actually commonly found in many western sold health supplements (ie: search online and you’ll see bottled, ground or pilled Cistanche for sale)
How do I prepare it?
Soak in warm water and rinse before using in soups
You can cut it up into small pieces (slices) for soups as well
Where can I buy this?
You can purchase this in most wet marts in Hong Kong who sell herbs
Chinese medicine shops will definitely have this in various forms a well (such as powdered, whole & dried, sliced, or little pieces)
What is the cost?
It will vary depending on size and condition of the Cistanche
In general, not overly cheap, but not extremely expensive
Any benefits?
It has clinically proven to slow aging, improves the memory, and enhance antibody production within the body
Cistanche helps dissipate wind and cold from the body
It helps with boosting appetite and the kidneys and large intestines and moistens the body
It is also said that this ingredient helps elderly who are always cold
Some say that this ingredient is a mild aphrodisiac
Any precautions?
Take caution when serving to children (use in moderation as with all Chinese medicine)
If you’ve got a naturally warm body, use with caution as sometimes “warm” ingredients or soups will make you heated
Good quality Cistanch is dark, large and slightly moist (see enclosed picture)
Introduction: An extremely easy and common Chinese tea/drink that is one of the traditional cooling teas. It relieves heatiness, expels heat from the body and is overall healthy for the body. Although slightly bitter in after taste, adding some honey or rock sugar can help make this tea delicious. There are a variety of recipes for ginseng tea with varying Chinese herbs, but this is the most basic.
What Ingredients are required?
1-2 pieces of dried ginseng (pending how bitter you’d like it) 1 tablespoon of honey 2-3 L of water
How do I prepare it?
Cut up long ginseng piece into slices (for releasing more ginseng flavor into the tea)
Add ginseng to water and boil covered for 30 minutes
Strain and add honey
Can be served chilled
Another way to prepare this tea is without boiling. You can simply steep the ginseng like normal tea leaves in a cup of hot/boiling water. Stir to distribute flavor and then add honey or rock sugar.
Any benefits?
Excellent for removing heatiness from the body
Great anti-oxidant and anti-carcinogenic properties
Extremely easy to make
Can help reduce fatigue, lower cholesterol and prevent infections
Any precautions?
Ginseng is a cooling food and should be avoided in women who are in their first trimester or in postpartum (confinement)
