Arrowroot and Water Chestnuts in Chicken Soup
Soup Name:
Arrowroot and Water Chestnuts in Chicken Soup
Traditional Chinese Name:
馬蹄粉葛雞湯 (mǎtí fěn gé jī tāng)
Nature: Slightly cooling
Taste: Sweet and savory
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A great soup for nourishing the lungs, helping with coughs and reducing phlegm.
The key ingredient here is the water chestnut. This is a common herb in the Chinese cuisine that is sweet, crunchy, and cooling. It’s the root of a water plant that has a brown outer skin and crunchy internal flesh.
The water chestnut is a cooling herb and can be used to treat conditions with heat (such as fevers or infections). It’s ideal for treating hot phlegm in the lungs and sinuses.
Be sure to buy water chestnuts that are firm in texture. This means they are still fresh. As they dry out, they soften and the interior becomes powdery. The shelf live of water chestnuts is around 1 week in the fridge.
Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 2 hours and 30 mins
Total time: 3 hours
Serves: 4-6 bowls
1 fresh whole chicken
10 fresh chicken feet
1 peel of dried tangerine peel
1 pound of smilax root
10-15 fresh water chestnuts
- 3 L water
- salt to flavour
- Cut smilax root & arrowroot into edible cubes
- Boil a pot of water to blanch smilax root, chicken & chicken feet (don’t cut nails as it will release oils into the soup)
- Boil soup water
- Wash and peel water chestnuts
- When water boils, add all the ingredients together
- Boil on high for 30 minutes and reduce to continually boiling for another 2 hour
- Serve and enjoy! You can also serve the arrowroot and chicken feet as part of the meal! That’s why I put in extra chicken feet! LOL.
EQUIPMENT USED
To answer your questions on what equipment I'm using, I've built a section here where you can find and explore what I'm using to make soups. Ingredients are a little harder, but I will do my best as I source them around. However, you can always message me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, and I will reply and try to point you in some direction!
A great help for fish or small bones in soups, including small ingredients such as barley, fox nuts, spices just to keep everything together.
A MUST HAVE in the kitchen! Energy saving, cost effective, and perfect for busy chefs! Check out my article here that explains it.
Another MUST HAVE in the kitchen for soups! It's so fine that it will scoop off the top oil and foam layer when using meats in your soup!
I use these types of stove top safe tea pots to make most of my herbal teas!
3 Comments
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Seriously Lisa. Need to have a bit of this when I am in HK.
Since I am working in Ningxia until late August, I have been accumulating a lot of phlegm in my lungs due to the dry and sandy climate of Northwestern China. This and the loquat soup would do good things to me.
Hi Soup Lady,
Can I omit smilax root from this soup as I have never seen it sold here in Singapore? Thanks for sharing all these delicious and nutritious recipes.
Dear Pauline, absolutely you can remove the smilax root. Even just arrowroot, water chestnuts and the chicken is good enough! You can also throw in dried dates, dried longans to boost flavor! Enjoy and thank you! Lisa