Healing Chinese Herbal Soup

Healing Chinese Herbal Soup

Healing Chinese Herbal Soup

Soup Name:

Healing Chinese Herbal Soup

Traditional Chinese Name:

北芪黨參消腫養陰湯 (běi qí dǎngshēn xiāo zhǒng yǎng yīn tāng)

For more videos, you can follow us on YouTube.

This soup is perfect for anyone who wants to replenish and strengthen blood and qi, has poor circulation, relieve fatigue, or reduce pain and inflammation.

I call this my Healing Chinese Herbal soup and want give a shout out to Tash from SouperWell for this partnership!  Hi Tash!

What’s involved?
Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 3 hours

Total time: 3 hours and 20 mins

Serves: 4 bowls

Ingredients

     

    Cooking Instructions
    1. You can pre-soak your tangerine peel (to soften) and dried Chinese yam (to wash off any sulphur usually used in the drying process)
    2. Prepare the protein by quartering your chicken
    3. Prepare 2 pots, one is the soup pot (add your 2 L of water) and one pot is for blanching the chicken
    4. Once your blanching pot boils, drop in your chicken and boil on high for 5-7 minutes, allowing the foam, fat, and bones come to the surface
    5. You can turn off your blanching heat and once your soup water boils, transfer the blanched chicken over and let that boil on high
    6. Add in your sliced lotus root and dried ingredients
    7. Cover and boil on high for 30 minutes
    8. Reduce to a low boil for another 3 hours
    9. Salt as needed

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    ABC Chinese Soup (with a Fancy Lobster Soup Base)

    ABC Chinese Soup (with a Fancy Lobster Soup Base)

    ABC Chinese Soup (with a Fancy Lobster Soup Base)

    Soup Name:

    ABC Chinese Soup (using a Lobster Base Soup)

    Traditional Chinese Name:

    ABC湯 (ABC tāng).  The easiest name in the Cantonese repertoire for ABC vegetable soup is 雜菜湯 (zá cài tāng), which literally translates to mixed vegetable soup.

    This soup is warming in nature and sweet to taste.

    To start, you can check out this video here where we explore this concept of “ABC” soup.  There are as many iterations of this soup that you can permutate the number of vegetables you can find!  

    What makes this soup so special is I used the leftover water when I boiled 2 whole lobsters for another meal.  Lobsters were on sale at the supermarket, thought it would be amazing to eat fresh lobster in the evening, so also decided to not waste the delicious seafood goodness and made a soup for dinner as well.

    ABC soup is a traditional favourite in Chinese households and most recipes are hand down from generation to generation with their own variations! 

     

    What’s involved?

    Prep time: 30 mins

    Cook time: 2 hours

    Total time: 2 hours 30 mins

    Serves: 6 bowls of soup

    Ingredients

    Cooking Instructions

    1. In your soup pot, add in 4L of water and bring to a boil.  Once that is boiling nicely, gently drop in the lobsters ensuring to cover and cook them quickly.   Boil until the lobster is fully cooked, which is around 7-10 minutes for the first pound, and 2-3 minutes for each additional pound.  I was using ~2 pound lobsters, so that’s around 12 minutes.
    2. Remove lobster from water and set the lobster aside.  Preserve this water for the soup base.  Turn this heat to a medium boil as we’ll begin to prepare the soup.
    3. In a shallow pan on medium heat, add in the chicken thighs and brown all the edges until crispy and brown.  The chicken doesn’t need to be fully cooked (as the soup will do it), but you want enough browning for flavour.  You don’t need to add oil to the pan as the chicken thighs will render out its own oil.  
    4. Once chicken is browned and crispy on all sides, remove from pan and add to your lobster water soup.  Keep this on a medium boil for now.
    5. Prepare all your vegetables into similarly sized pieces.  
    6. Add all the ingredients into your soup.  This includes the vegetables and dried Chinese herbs.
    7. Boil on medium high for 30 minutes.
    8. Reduce to a low boil for another 2.5 hours.
    9. Serve and enjoy!  No salt needed!

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    Chinese Herbal Soup with Abalone

    Chinese Herbal Soup with Abalone

    Chinese Herbal Soup with Abalone

    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 special when I add abalone because it’s delicious to eat as part of the meal and brings a special savory taste to the soup.  You can’t really taste the sea, but it does really accent the soup!  This soup is warming in nature and sweet to taste.  I made this soup for my daughters post menstruation and it’s perfect for cold winter days or when you’d like to replenish qi or blood and have excess yin (feeling cold in the limbs, have a pale tongue, pale complexion).  

    I buy my abalone frozen from the local supermarkets.  These are a little smaller ones and are perfect for soups.  To use, you can thaw the night before or soak in cool water.  Remove from the shell gently, ensuring you don’t break any of it and then you can use a knife or your fingers to gently remove the bottom portion (also the stomach and reproduction parts of the abalone).  Be sure to also wash them.  I’ll use a toothbrush because it’s smaller and can get into the crevices of the abalone.  Some people use a brush as well.  You can also do this under running water.

    What’s involved?

    Prep time: 15 mins

    Cook time: 3 hours

    Total time: 3 hours 15 mins

    Serves: 4 bowls of soup

    Ingredients

    Cooking Instructions

    1. Begin to boil a separate pot to blanch your chicken in
    2. Prepare your chicken (I usually remove the legs and wings and quarter it)
    3. Prepare the abalone by removing it from it’s shell and removing its organs
    4. In the blanching pot, pre-boil the chicken and abalone to remove excess debris, blood, bones, and fat.  Once it boils again for 5 minutes, you can remove it from the hot water.  It doesn’t need to be fully cooked as that will happen in the soup.
    5. Begin to boil your soup water
    6. Once your soup water boils, add all the ingredients together
    7. Boil on high for 30 mins and reduce to a low boil for another 2.5 hours
    8. Serve and enjoy!  No salt needed – try it!  This soup is delicious!!

    Benefits

    Precautions

    • This is a warm soup, so not suggested for those who have yin deficiency (too much yang) in their bodies

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    Easy One Pot Cabbage and Sukiyaki Pork in Soup for Dinner

    Easy One Pot Cabbage and Sukiyaki Pork in Soup for Dinner

    Easy One Pot Cabbage and Sukiyaki Pork in Soup for Dinner

    Soup Name:

    Easy one pot cabbage and sukiyaki pork in soup for dinner

    This soup is slightly cooling because of the cabbage.

     

    For more videos, visit us on YouTube.

    Looking for a simple, healthy, easy-to-make Chinese soupy dinner?  I’ve found one!

    If you love napa cabbage and the sukiyaki styled soft pork (which is used in hot pots), I’ve got just the meal for you.  All you really need are 2 ingredients and everything else is extra – so get creative~!

    Learning tip: In Cantonese, 一鑊熟 yat (one) wok (pot) suk (cooked)! Meaning, everything cooked in one pot. I love these ideas! Thank you @peggychan1210 for your suggested word! 

    What’s involved?

    Prep time: 15 mins

    Cook time: 30 mins

    Total time: 45 mins

    Serves: 6 servings

    Ingredients
    • 1 large fresh napa cabbage
    • 1 pack of sliced pork (or beef or chicken, your choice).  The thinner the better with a little bit of fat (sukiyaki style, which means it’s designed for hot pots and cooks quickly)
    • 1 tablespoon of dried wolfberries (optional)
    • 2 tablespoon of chicken broth (can use 1 tablespoon of miso paste instead)
    • 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
    • 2 L of water
    • optional green onions for garnish
    • optional drizzle of sesame oil
    Cooking Instructions
    1. Slice your napa cabbage into 3-inch sections horizontally, keeping the circle intact if you can
    2. Then gently layer in the pork slices into the folds of the cut napa cabbage, ensuring you can hold the circle and that it fits into your soup cooking pot
    3. Layer the cabbage so it fits circular into the pot (see video)
    4. Top with seasoning or soup base as needed
    5. Top with optional herbs such as dried wolfberries or dried dates
    6. Add 2L of water (or enough to fill the pot)
    7. Cover and boil on medium for 30 minutes
    8. Garnish, serve, and enjoy with rice or noodles!

    Some tips!

    • Use a larger napa cabbage (not the baby ones) as the leaves are too small and won’t completely fill the pot.
    • When you cut the cabbage, hold it in place with your hands as its grown (keeping the layers in place), that way, you can just slip in the meat in between without restacking.  
    • The sukiyaki type of meat that’s best for this type of dish is a half fatty, half meaty cut.  These become soft (because of the fat portion) and cook really quickly. 
    • Use simple herbs like wolfberries or dried red dates to warm up the soup as cabbage is a cooling vegetable.

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    White Radish with Mushrooms and Vermicelli in Chicken Soup

    White Radish with Mushrooms and Vermicelli in Chicken Soup

    White Radish with Mushrooms and Vermicelli in Chicken Soup

    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 rice or noodles on the side and serve up this dish as a meal for your family.

    This soup has got a healthy selection of protein and packs a volume of vegetables.  You can design the vegetable of your choice, and my family loves to eat siu choy (or napa cabbage), but normal cabbage, lettuce, also go well.

    You can also be selective in your mushrooms.  I kind of just went with a whole bunch of fresh mushrooms from the supermarket such as fresh oyster, brown, and shiitake mushrooms.  Dried mushrooms also work well, but do need more time to rehydrate.   

    What’s involved?

    Prep time: 15 mins

    Cook time: 30 mins

    Total time: 45 mins

    Serves: 6 bowls

    Ingredients
    • 3 chicken thighs
    • 1 whole white radish, peeled, cubed
    • mushroom selection (your choice, I went with fresh oyster mushrooms, fresh brown mushrooms, and fresh shiitake mushrooms)
    • 3 dried shiitake mushrooms (for flavour)
    • 1 pack of dried vermicelli
    • 2 small napa cabbage (or vegetable of choice) – something with a lighter taste (so the whiter / paler the vegetable is better)
    • 1 tablespoon of dried conpoys
    • 1 tablespoon of dried longans
    • 1 tablespoon of white miso paste
    • 3-4 L of water

     

    Cooking Instructions
    1. Soak the vermicelli in cool water for at least 10 minutes
    2. Chop chicken into large pieces and in a shallow pan fry skin down (no oil as needed as a lot of the fat will be rendered out).  Fry on medium heat for 5-7 minutes, flipping as it browns.  The chicken doesn’t need to be thoroughly cooked as it will be going into the soup anyways, you just want the edges to be a nice golden brown with a crust.
    3. Boil your soup water.
    4. Peel and chop white radish into cubes.  Size is up to you depending on how much time you have.  The less time, the smaller the pieces should be.
    5. When the soup water boils, throw in the pan-fried chicken thighs and white radish and boil on high for 10 minutes
    6. You can drop in the dried mushrooms, conpoys, and dragon eyes (in this case, I don’t rehydrate the mushrooms as they need a good hour sometimes, so dropping them in directly is OK)
    7. Cut up your napa cabbage in small pieces and drop into your soup, along with your selection of mushrooms
    8. Continue to boil for 10 minutes on medium heat
    9. Drop in 1 tablespoon of white miso and stir it around to make sure it’s dissolved.
    10. Finally drop in the hydrated vermicelli and boil for another 10 minutes on medium heat, covered.
    11. Top with chopped green onions or cilantro for taste.
    12. Serve and enjoy!  You can add rice or noodles as part of the meal.

    Some time saving tips!

    • You can pre-soak the vermicelli first thing in the morning.  This stuff stays pretty supple throughout the day and will only soften when boiled.  If you’re going to soak them, I’d suggest to also soak the dried shiitake mushrooms, too!
    • The quicker you want your soup to cook, especially the white radish, cut the pieces smaller.  I like larger pieces because you can fish them out, but smaller will help if you’ve got a time crunch!
    • You can replace the miso paste with a soy sauce soup base (with chicken broth) as well.  I don’t use any broth powder in this case as miso is perfect on it’s own!
    • Tofu is also a great quick cook ingredient to add if you want more variety.  All types of tofu!
    • Don’t be afraid to cook the chicken on HIGH heat.  Just make sure you monitor it and turn and rotate the chicken as it browns.  Remember, you don’t need to fully cook it, you just want enough of a beautiful crust and brown so it’s crispy and already bursting with flavours!

    For videos, visit us on YouTube.

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    Fragrant Potatoes and Tomatoes in a Milky Fish Broth

    Fragrant Potatoes and Tomatoes in a Milky Fish Broth

    Fragrant Potatoes and Tomatoes in a Milky Fish Broth

    Soup Name:

    Fragrant potatoes and tomatoes in a milky fish broth (yup, fancy name!)

    Traditional Chinese Name:

    番茄魚湯 (fānqié yú tāng)

    This name of 番茄魚湯 is literally the most staple name for any soup with fish and tomatoes in it.  Of course, get creative!

    This soup is neutral in nature sweet to taste.

     

    For videos, visit us on YouTube.

    When you’ve got that milky broth going, you know you’ve got the soup base right for your fish soup.

    It’s been awhile since I made a fish soup and my kids have grown up this pretty traditional Cantonese-styled soup from their grandma, so I decided to make it again in Toronto.

    I wasn’t sure what type of fish I’d find at the supermarket for soup making, but it is pretty fully loaded!!   To be honest, you can use any type of fish for fish soup.  However, I would recommend using more of the bones parts of the fish.  The head is the best with the tail being second and then stomach and main body.  The head is packed full of calcium, nutrients, and collagen.  And when boiled out in soup, dissolves into the soup and gives it more of that milky disposition.  It’s truly amazing!  Read on on how to prepare the fish.

     

    What’s involved?

    Prep time: 45 mins

    Cook time: 3 hours

    Total time: 3 hours 45 mins

    Serves: 8 bowls

    Ingredients

    Tips before you start!

    •  Pan-fry in ginger and oil (add scallions if you’d like) the first before you add it to the soup.  This will make it more fragrant and eliminate the fishy smell and taste.
    • Also pan-fry the potatoes on high heat, crusting all sides (doesn’t need to be fully cooked).  This will keep it together in the soup and prevent it from dissolving and disappearing in the soup (and makes it super fragrant)
    • Salt fish very lightly if you’d like.  For this version, I actually didn’t salt at all!  It turned out amazing and people can add salt afterwards as they like. 
    Cooking Instructions
    1. .Start boiling your soup water in a soup pot on high heat
    2. Wash, clean, and pat dry your fish
    3. In a shallow pan, add in a tablespoon of oil, 8 ginger slices, and a bunch of largely sliced green onions on medium-high heat.  Let that brown a bit.
    4. Throw in your fish, browning as much of it as you can.  It doesn’t need to be fully cooked, just crisp the edges and meat on all sides.  Once done, you can turn off the heat.
    5. Once your soup water boils, add in the fried fish along with the dried longans and dried scallops.
    6. Reduce that to a medium boil
    7. You can now peel and cut the potatoes into giant chunks
    8. In a shallow pan on medium-high heat, add a tablespoon of oil and brown all the sides of the potatoes, as crispy as you can get.  This crust will keep the potatoes in tack as it boils and softens.
    9. Once that browns, throw it into your soup.
    10. Cut up the tomatoes into large quarters and drop that into your soup as well
    11. You can then prepare the abalone and drop into your soup.
    12. Reduce to a low boil for about 2-3 hours.  I did 3 hours for this.
    13. By now, you should have a beautiful milky broth.  Throw in scallions for taste.
    14. Serve and enjoy!

    My kids loved this soup!  It’s something they grew up with and eat the potatoes as part of the soup.

    I normally don’t keep fish soup overnight, but somehow I wanted to save some for the day after and when I went back to reheat it, the soup was congealed!!  It was amazing!  This means that the collagen (and there’s a lot) has hardened and simply gently reheat and enjoy again!

    For those who love eating fish heads, I also didn’t use a soup bag as the grass carp head was pretty large.  A lot of the meat does stay in tack and have separated from the bones, so you can “fish” for them at the bottom of the soup with a scooper!  Enjoy!!

     

    For videos, visit us on YouTube.

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