As part of our focus on eating healthy on a budget, last week we shared a classic recipe for Chinese chicken stock. This week, Jing teaches us how to make an economical homemade Chinese chicken soup as a meal for one or two people, or as a broth for cooking noodles or other recipes. Chinese soups are both broth and stock: they have the consistency of a broth, but are made using bones and connective tissues in addition to the meat like a stock. Thus, they are very healthy, because essential nutrients, amino acids, and collagen from the bones, marrow, and cartilage are broken down and made digestible during the simmering.
In Chinese cuisine, in addition to the basic seasonings of salt, sugar, and light soy sauce we all know, there is another special, healthy flavoring ingredient: chicken soup or broth.
Soups in the professional Chinese kitchen
In professional Chinese kitchens, chefs usually use a large soup pot and put a large number of chicken skeletons, pork bones, and other bones in the pot. They add a large amount of water, boil and remove the blood foam, simmer for a long time, and then strain, yielding a delicious stock. For a white broth, the chef adds high-protein ingredients, such as pork legs, chicken feet, and so on. In a busy restaurant, the chefs will use these stocks within 1-2 days both for making soups and for flavoring other recipes to make the dishes more delicious. If the stock is not used up the day it is made, it needs to be heated again and allowed to cool without stirring in the middle, and then placed in the refrigerator for storage.
Homemade Chinese soups
In China, we use homemade chicken soup to supplement nutrition. People recovering from illness and breastfeeding women like to drink chicken soup. We also use homemade chicken broth to cook wheat noodles or rice noodles and to flavor recipes. So, how do we make this delicious Chinese chicken soup in our home kitchen? We don’t need the vast quantities of ingredients and cooking times found in professional kitchens, nor are we likely to make use of so much stock. We can make a simple homemade chicken soup in smaller quantity with the same characteristic Chinese soup flavor that comes from ginger and scallions.
Making your own Chinese chicken soups and stocks is very easy, economical, and nutritious. It will stretch your food budget, improve your health, and is one of the easiest things to make in a home kitchen. Buying whole chickens and cutting them up yourself is much cheaper per pound. When you buy the whole chicken, you can get two uses: as a protein in an entree and using the scraps for homemade Chinese chicken soup.
Homemade Chinese Chicken Soup
Equipment
- 1 wok
- 1 pressure cooker (optional)
- 1 slotted spoon
- 1 cheesecloth
- 1 kitchen strainer or colander
- 1 large saucepan for straining the broth into after cooking
Ingredients
- 1 chicken half
- 2 green onions
- 4-6 slices fresh ginger
- water to cover the chicken
Instructions
- Rinse the chicken, being sure to remove any blood clots. Peel and slice the ginger. Rinse the green onions and trim the roots. Chop the chicken into pieces. Remove some of the larger pieces of fat.
- Rinse the chopped chicken pieces thoroughly, then soak them in water for 20-30 minutes to remove any remaining blood from the chicken.
- Add cold water to the wok or stockpot roughly equal to twice the volume of the chicken. Then add the chicken pieces, green onions, and ginger slices. Bring to a boil over high heat.1 chicken half, 2 green onions, 4-6 slices fresh ginger, water to cover the chicken
- Remove the foam from the surface of the soup. Wrap some cheesecloth around a slotted spoon and lightly skim the surface to remove the foam. This process takes a little time, as foam always appears during the boiling process. We need to patiently remove the foam. When the foam is finally clear, reduce the heat to low and simmer the broth for 1.5-2 hours. (Or put the water, chicken and aromatics into a pressure cooker and cook for 12 minutes.) Then remove the green onion and ginger slices.
- Simply strain the chicken scraps. Finish.
Video
Notes
- Use a freshly slaughtered chicken and remove the foam that appears after boiling. This will make the finished soup clearer.
- This is chicken soup for 1-2 people, if you want to make more, please add more ingredients and water.
- Chopping the chicken and using cold water will help break down albumin and other nutrients, making a more nutritious and clearer broth.
- If you add any salt, do so sparingly if you intend to use the broth in another recipe.
To strain for use as broth or bouillon:
- Line a colander or sieve with cheesecloth.
- Place the colander or sieve over a pot large enough to contain the liquid.
- Remove the larger chunks of meat with a skimmer or slotted spoon.
- Pour the liquid through the colander lined with cheesecloth. (You may need a helper to hold the colander over the pot while you pour.)
Nutrition
Recipes that use chicken broth for flavoring
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