Steamed Chicken Herbal Soup
This is a lazy recipe for chicken herbal soup cooked via steaming instead of the usual simmering method. I just came back from holiday and caught a cold, so I was not really in the mood for cooking anything fancy. I was just yearning to drink some nourishing home-made chicken soup but since there is no one to cook it for me, I use this short cut and equally good method to get rich herbal chicken soup.
See Also:
For convenience, I used a packet of pre-packed Chinese herbs for stewing chicken soup (in this case I used half a packet for half a chicken). Since less water is used, the soup is concentrated and rich.
Straight off the steamer
I’m too lazy to cut the chicken so I used a half chicken (butterflied cut) and steamed it together (uncut) with the Chinese herbs, and when cooked, the meat should come off the bones quite easily. I roughly shred the meat using spoon and fork, then transfer the soup and shredded chicken meat into a soup bowl – it really looks more like a stewed soup than a steamed chicken dish when you “repackaged” it this way. The recipe makes two bowls of soup for two.
Steamed Herbal Chicken Soup Recipe
My packet of stewed chicken soup herbs I bought randomly at the supermarket contains yuzhu (20g), huai shan (20g), dang shen (20g), dang gui (20g), gan cao (15g) and qi zi/wolfberries (16g). Since I am only cooking half a chicken, I measure out half the ingredients and save the other half for another session.
Serves: 2
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 1 hr
Ingredients:
- half chicken
- 1/2 to 1 packet Chinese herbs for stewing chicken soup (炖鸡汤料)
- 3 slices ginger
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and slightly bruised
- a small handful of dried black fungus soaked in hot water, drained, discard the hard portion on bottom of fungus & cut to strips
- 1 cup water
- 1 tbsp sesame oil (reduce the amount if you want less “heaty”)
- 1/2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
Directions:
- Place chicken in a wide and deep plate. Scatter washed Chinese herbs, ginger, garlic and cut fungus (if using) over the chicken.
- Add water, sesame oil, light soy sauce and Chinese wine. Stir to mix well.
- Seal the plate with aluminium foil and cook the chicken on high heat until the water at the steamer is boiling.
- Lower down the heat and continue to cook for about 50 minutes to an hour.
- Season the soup to taste with salt or soy sauce if needed. Use a spoon to drizzle some soup onto the chicken.
- You can serve the steamed chicken dish as it is, or serve the shredded chicken meat and soup in a soup bowl
Noob Cook Tips
- To test if the chicken is cooked, insert a fork in the thigh area. If clear liquid (no blood) runs out, it is cooked.
- You can also use cut chicken pieces instead of using a half or whole chicken, steaming time will be slightly faster.
- You can also use fresh mushrooms such as shiitake instead of black fungus.