Black Chicken Soup With Chinese Herbs

May 26, 2022

Good day Foodies Bee Hive!

Just recently, I shared about an Authentic Chinese soup perfect for rainy days called Lotus Bean Soup. Vegetarians will truly love this. Check the link in case you haven't read it yet.

And today, I want to share a special Chinese soup recipe again. This is very healthy and tasty as it is full of natural Chinese herbs. It is called Black Chicken Chinese Soup With Chinese Herbs.

Do you know that black chicken is rich in B Vitamins, supports cellular energy, and improves heart health? That is the reason why the Chinese love using black chicken for their soup as it is full of nutrition and even becomes healthier with a combination of Chinese herbs.

Commonly, the Chinese would prepare black chicken for their family member who is ill or just recovered from it, even for a mother who just delivered a baby. Meanwhile, my Chinese boss would usually cook black chicken soup when her daughter is about to have examinations. As for her, this soup is rich in vitamins good for the brain. They even have bottles of vitamins from chicken essence. So basically, fresh soup is healthier than those bottled chicken essence vitamins.

I purposely go with my boss to the market so I could take photos of the black chicken. Some black chickens have white feathers. Some literally have black feathers. And we either buy the black-feathered chicken or the white-feathered one. I am not sure of the difference though, as I only taste yummy chicken soup after cooking them, lol.

We bought that black-feathered chicken

Ingredients and Preparation

This soup contains a lot of nutritious Chinese herbs. So if there are Chinese stores in your place, you can ask about this list of Chinese herbs in case you want to try them. You can omit some too and just use the ingredients available at home or just use some natural alternatives if you want.

Ingredients

Meat ingredients include whole black chicken and pork. For pork, we like using the backbone with some meat parts.

For the Chinese Herbs you can refer to the photo below.

I don't know though the name of the ingredient with no label in the photo, I can't google it too. Maybe you know it? 😅

For the natural sweetener, we used dried red and black dates, goji berries, and dried longan.

We also added ginger and dried tangerine peel (pre-soaked) for additional scent and flavor.

Procedure

Wash all ingredients well, especially the dried codonopsis roots. You can scrub it with your thumb when washing to remove the black particles. Just to make sure they are well cleaned before adding to the soup. You can either cut the red dates into halves or just boil them whole.

Don't forget to scrape the white soft part of the pre-soaked dried tangerine peel. Some are not removing it, but we scrape them off since dried tangerine peels are dried in the outdoor area and can be dusty.
In a separate pot, boil water and blanch the chicken and pork meat for a few minutes. Once blanched, rinse and remove the blood clots.

In a large boiling pot, add all ingredients and boil for 3 to 4 hours.

We added more water into this pot and made it almost full so we'll have more soup good for 2 days

Occasionally check your boiling soup and make sure it has enough water. Or else, you wouldn't have enough soup for later 😅. Gradually add some water if necessary.

And here's the boiling one.

For small cooking, they only boil the chicken soup for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender. For us, we let it boil on medium-low fire for a longer time to really release the essence of the ingredients.

After 4 hours, here's the finished product.

The chicken meat afterward is still eatable, albeit tasteless, as the taste is already in the soup. Some are using pressure cookers for easy cooking. You can prepare this soup depending on your preference. You can also boil it for a short period if you are after the taste of the chicken. But if you like the essence of it to be in the soup, you can boil this for long period depending on your preference.

Chicken soup with herbs is really tasty and healthy. Aside from the chicken and pork meat in the soup, you can also eat the Chinese yam and cordyceps mushroom, as well the red dates and longan.

For alternatives, since Chinese herbs are hard to find in countries outside Asia, you can use ginseng roots and just add some sweetener like red dates and longan which certainly can be found in other parts of the world, not just in Asia. Ordinary chicken can be used too, not just the black one. But since the black chicken is more nutritious, the Chinese people often use it. healthy and yummy

For some, they are using frozen chicken. But I guess it doesn't taste good, the fresh ones are the best, especially the natives.

Everytime we are making this, the soup reminded me of chicken tinola, a Filipino recipe and my favorite chicken recipe.
Here's how it look like from my favorite pinoy cooking site.

Image from: https://panlasangpinoy.com/classic-tinolang-manok-recipe/