Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup/Kinesisk urter kylling suppe/药材鸡汤[yào cái jī tāng]

Recipe adapted from The Chinese Soup Lady

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

- 1 fresh whole chicken or 800-1000g of chicken pieces or chicken fillets (The Chinese prefer to cook with a whole chicken as it is tastier)
- 2 litres of water
- 1 small handful of dried skrimps or dried oyster (optional, it makes the soup even sweeter)

Chinese herbs - clockwise from left starting with the flat white sticks:
- 5 sticks of dried Chinese yam (Flat white sticks on picture)
- 1 handful of Goji berries (also called wolfberries)
- 5-6 dried scallops (conpoys)
- 10 dried longans

Directions:
1. Remove skin from chicken (optional, but it is healthier)

2. Dump all the ingredients into the electric slow cooking pot and slow cook for 5-8 hours.

3. Serve with rice (preferably brown rice) and stir-fry vegetables Chinese style on the side to make a complete meal.

Tips:
1. Prepare in the evening and slow cook overnight. Soup ready for the next day for lunch pack to work.

OR

2. Prepare in the morning and cook for 5-8 hours. Soup ready for dinner when you come home from work.

Nutritional Value:
Chicken is very nutritious and the Chinese consider chicken to be a health tonic. For nutrtional value of chicken, please see this link:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2624637&l=a6588e5e0c&id=705043347

The Chinese believe that chicken herbal soup is an excellent warming soup for cold days. Good for increasing blood circulation and blood flow. It is considered to be of the “healing” categories of soup. Good to drink after an operation, such as the appendicitis operation that I just went through. Can be used for confinement food. If used for confinement, you can make the soup more concentrated (less water or more ingredients)

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Additional Information:
If you can get the black chicken or the kampong chicken from Malaysia, it would be more nutritious and tasty. Unfortunately, black chicken is not available in Denmark :-(

I use the Japanese brand Takahi electric slow cooker. It has a auto-function that slow cooks on high heat, and then switch automatically to low heat to simmer the soup and keep it warm. Trust the Japanese for their inventions!

If you are curious about what black chicken is to the Chinese, you can read more from this link:

http://www.thechinesesouplady.com/black-chicken/

References:
www.thechinesesouplady.com/chicken-herbal-soup