Warming Chicken and Coconut Herbal (Healing) Chinese Soup
Soup Name:
Warming chicken and coconut herbal (and healing) Chinese soup
Traditional Chinese Name:
椰子雞湯 (yē zi jī tāng)
Nature: Warming
Taste: Slightly sweet and savory
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Oh! This soup! It delivered – and more!!
Warm with intense flavours of rich coconut and savory chicken, it really hits the spot when it’s cool (or cold) and you just want a warm blanket to hug you.
I made a rather large pot in the morning and grazed on it all day. As it continued to sit in its own broth and stew away, the soup became more and more intense and became a rich, earthy tone at dinner. You can tell this by the colour of the broth. SUCCESS!
3 key things for this soup:
- Don’t drink the coconut water! Save it for the soup!
- Use the smaller round coconuts (brown fruit) instead of the traditional larger coconuts. Their flesh is sweeter and so is the coconut water.
- Pan fry the chicken thighs (rather than blanch) to give it a savory, toasted flavour to the soup.
Prep time: 45 mins
Cook time: min 2 hours
Total time: 2 hours 45 mins
Serves: 6 large bowls
- 2 fresh chicken thighs
- 1 fresh whole brown round coconut, preserve the water
- 2 fresh corn
- 5 pieces of dried red dates (seeds removed)
- 8 pieces of dried longans
- 1 teaspoon of dried wolfberries or goji berries
- 7 pieces of dried scallops
- 2.5 L of water
- Prepare your coconut. This means, poking holes at the top, drain the coconut water in a separate bowl. Using a hammer, just smash smash smash the coconut to shreds. Remove the outer shell from the coconut meat and cut into 2×2 inch pieces.
- Cut your chicken thighs into 3 pieces and in your soup pot (or a shallow pan), pan fry on medium heat until the skin and edges are crispy.
- Add in your water to your soup pot and set it on high until it completely boils
- Cut your cut into quarters and drop into the soup
- Drop in all the Chinese herbs
- Pour in the reserved coconut water
- Cover and boil for 20 minutes and then reduce boil to a medium simmer for another 1 hour and 40 minutes
- Taste, salt as needed, serve and enjoy!
What I love about soup is that it doesn’t go from clear water to broth in the snap of a finger. At what point does it make this transition? Fascinating.
Do you see how deep, dark, and rich that broth looks?
The best thing about this soup post making is that you can eat it all! The chicken thigh is falling off the bone, tender, and tastes like coconut. I don’t even need to dip it in soy sauce like I do with pork shank. The corn is bulbous and some of them are filled with soup. I don’t even need to butter it! And the coconut meat is soft, flaky and rich. You can really taste the coconut flavours. This soup was super nice. I’ll need to make another batch. The only downfall is that preparing a coconut is like going to battle – me vs the coconut.
Here are some tips on using fresh coconut in Chinese soups!
- Reserve the coconut water (where possible!). It’s delicious, sweet, and adds an amazing fragrance to the soup! I ended up drinking one because I had 2. LOL.
- Use a hammer to smash it open. I’ve seen people do it with a butcher’s knife (back side), but hammer works!
- Put a towel to absorb the impact of the smash underneath the coconut.
- You can use a butter knife to cut out the flesh if it sticks to the shell.
- Rinse the freed coconut flesh under water to remove debris, shell, dirt before adding to your soup.
- Boil for at least 1 hour to soften slight, but coconut meat doesn’t really become that soft. It’ll stay slightly crunchy and textured.
- Don’t overcomplicate the soup with a lot of ingredients to allow the highlight of the soup (the coconut) to shine!
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