The easiest of #teas to make at home to help promote blood flow, strengthen the #heart, and promote sleep. This #Chinese#herbal tea is best drank before bedtime, after #dinner. I simply used 6 dried #longans, 2 dried red #dates, and a handful of dried #wolfberries. It is a slightly #warming tea and allows for good circulation of #qi. This #drink is ideal for people who do not get enough rest, are overworked, women who have recently given birth, and people who have deficiencies in qi and blood. Remove the seeds from the red dates (as they seeds are known to be heaty in a bad way), steep everything for 5 minutes in hot (boiling) water, and enjoy!
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.
YOUR GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENT STYLES OF MAKING CHINESE SOUPSIs there a benefit to low or high intensity?What is a measurable property of intensity?What happens if you under or over cook? All great questions! Read more to explore the answers to these questions.There are...
Soup Name: Chicken Herbal Soup with Abalone Traditional Chinese Name: 鮑魚清雞湯 (bào yú qīng jī tāng) This soup is warming in nature and sweet to taste. Visit us on YouTube for more tea and soup videos.One of my favourite basic chicken Chinese soups - ever! And it's...
Happy Chinese New Year's!! Wishing you and your family a very happy, healthy, and beautiful year of the rabbit!! As a tradition, the Chinese will eat what's called "New Year's Cake". It's basically sweetened rice and glutinous rice flour pan fried until soft and...
Tea Name: Chrysanthemum and Roselle (Hibiscus) Honey Tea Traditional Chinese Name: 菊花茶 (jú huā chá) This tea is sweet and sour to taste and cooling in nature.Visit us on YouTube for more tea and soup videos.Taking a moment? Want something calming and soothing? Try...
HOW TO CHECK IF YOU'RE IMPROVING BLOOD CIRCULATION? I'm always curious about metrics and measuring success or at least measuring progress. What started as an initial recommendation from my Chinese doctor to do foot soaks to improve circulation, turned into a full...
Soup Name: Chicken Herbal Soup with Abalone Traditional Chinese Name: 鮑魚清雞湯 (bào yú qīng jī tāng) This soup is warming in nature and sweet to taste. Visit us on YouTube for more tea and soup videos.One of my favourite basic chicken Chinese soups - ever! And it's...
Happy Chinese New Year's!! Wishing you and your family a very happy, healthy, and beautiful year of the rabbit!! As a tradition, the Chinese will eat what's called "New Year's Cake". It's basically sweetened rice and glutinous rice flour pan fried until soft and...
Tea Name: Chrysanthemum and Roselle (Hibiscus) Honey Tea Traditional Chinese Name: 菊花茶 (jú huā chá) This tea is sweet and sour to taste and cooling in nature.Visit us on YouTube for more tea and soup videos.Taking a moment? Want something calming and soothing? Try...
HOW TO CHECK IF YOU'RE IMPROVING BLOOD CIRCULATION? I'm always curious about metrics and measuring success or at least measuring progress. What started as an initial recommendation from my Chinese doctor to do foot soaks to improve circulation, turned into a full...
Soup Name: White radish with mushrooms and vermicelli in Chicken Soup Chinese Name: 白蘿蔔冬菇粉絲雞湯 (bái luóbo dōng gū fěn sī jī tāng) For more videos, visit us on YouTube.Sometimes, I want something relatively easy and quick to whip up all in one-pot! Make a bit of...
My herbalist suggested I drink a simple tea made of red dates during my period. It’s super easy to make, as the dates are already sitting in the fridge and you just add hot water. Some people will boil it with a few other ingredients, such as wolfberries and fresh ginger slices. This is also an ideal confinement drink if you’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth – replace this in place of coffee or tea to avoid the caffeine, but get the benefits of the blood replenishment.
This page is about Chinese Confinement in the final days. From here on forward, it’s all about ensuring the body is pumped full of herbs, heat and healing ingredients that help the mother “seal” her body and make her “wholesome and strong” again. The soups and meals here are packed with serious herbal, healing and heaty additives and not to consumed by the faint of heart. It is completely and entirely customized for the confinement mommy (unless the recipes indicate that other people can drink it too), but it really is more heaty and healing than your average soup. Some recipes even require double-boiling to preserve the concentration of healing qualities.
According to my local herbalist, she says one can’t become over-heated during confinement, so just throw all the ammunition you have. This is really the final stretch and how you heal the body here, is said to dictate the health of your body until your next child, or for the rest of your life. Rather scary huh? That’s why the Chinese take confinement so seriously!
I will continue to add as I learn more here, but here’s a start.
Chinese Confinement drinks, teas & soups (for the final days):
A mildly sweet soup containing mainly Chinese herbs and dried additives, it’s an easy make and great for cold days or someone who needs to replenish their heat and warmth. It comes highly recommended as a basis for confinement and you can double-boil it with Chicken as well for added warming and healing properties.
It’s not an overly powerful soup and is appropriate for the whole family (use a more dilute concentration if children are drinking it).
What’s involved?
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 2 hours
Total time: 2 hours 15 mins
Serves: 2 bowls (confinement size)
Ingredients
500 g of pork shank (or pork marrows and bones for confinement)
Soup Name: Chinese Yam with Apples and Corn in Chicken Broth (with Ginger)
Traditional Chinese Name: 蘋果玉米淮山雞湯 (píng guǒ yù mǐ huái shān jī tāng)
Introduction:
A simple, clean chicken broth with just a hint of sweetness and a tang of spice (from the ginger). Depending on who your consumer is, add less or more ginger. For confinement, don’t be scared to throw it all in! This soup is easy to make, it’s got basic neutral ingredients and is great for the whole family!
What Ingredients are required?
1 fresh whole chicken, quartered 4-5 whole apples, cored and quartered 2 fresh corn, quartered 2 fresh pieces of Chinese Yam about 1 foot in length, peeling is optional, quartered 150 g of sliced fresh ginger (for confinement purposes) 2 L of water salt to taste How do I prepare it?
Clean, prepare and blanch chicken in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes
Set aside to cool
Wash, prepare apples, corn and Chinese Yam
Slice ginger thinly
Boil your soup water, when it boils, add all the ingredients together
Boil on high for about 30 minutes and reduce to a simmer for 1 hour
Serve and enjoy!
Any benefits?
With ginger, it’s a slightly warm soup, but without it, it’s neutral
Pregnancy, confinement and child friendly
Sweet and fresh to the taste
Excellent source of Vitamins and hearty to eat
Any precautions?
For children, go easy on the ginger because that can really spice up the soup!
Be sure to clean, peel Chinese Yam with gloves as the outer skin of the Chinese Yam can make your fingers itchy (if you opt to peel the skin)
