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Monday, December 13, 2010

Black Chicken with Black Dates Soup


When I was a kid, my mom always double boil black chicken with angelica and black dates. And I was a kid, angelica tasted bitter to me. Well, maybe she used a lot, like one whole root of it, in just a small double boiler. I wonder why, with regular white chicken, it’s always red dates, but when it’s a silkie/black chicken, it’s always black dates. Hmmm… matching skins? Black with black? Uh-huh, I don’t know. I only know it taste good now, cos I used much lesser angelica than my mom.

Angelica is a lady’s herb, so, do not feed to much of this to your man or your pre-puberty kids. You don’t want to mess with their hormones. A bit is fine, as this herb is also used in Bak Kut Te h, the famous pork herbal soup from Klang, but not too much and not too often. And do not consume angelica when you’re pregnant too. That’s all I know.


The soup is very sweet, minimal salt needed to add a salty edge to it. I only used ½ tsp for the whole pot of soup. Without the dang shen, the soup looks clearer, so suit yourself, to use dangshen or not, but it’s really nice with it.


1 Black Chicken/Silkie, mine was about 900gm, dressed weight
80gm black dates
30gm dang shen
3 pieces Angelica Sinensis root, dang guei
1 Tbsp wolfberries
2.5L water

1. Bring water to a boil.
2. Meanwhile, rinse the dangshen and wolfberries. Dangshen may contain dirt. Very lightly rinse angelica.
3. Remove seeds from black dates.
4. When water has come to a rolling boil, put in whole chicken and herbs. Bring back to a boil and lower heat to simmer for 2.5hours.
5. Season with salt and turn off heat. Let the soup sit for half an hour and skim off fat. But more fat will surface once you break up the chicken.

19 comments:

  1. now i know y my mum always force me to drink this! though i really cringe at the color of the chicken lol!

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  2. I love this type of soup. I load up this herbs the last time I went home and will try making this once every two months when I am able to find fresh black chicken.

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  3. I manage to buy black chicken in a specific wet market here. This is a very nutritious soup.

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  4. my mum LOVE to brew this for me but im sooo scared to drink it!! all the good and expensive herbs used! i definitely wont do justice to them! hahah

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  5. Looking at your black chicken soup reminds me I have to make it one of these days...its been awhile. :P

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  6. Though I know it's a healthy soup, I don't take it at all. I'm not very much into chinese herbal food. But it's good that you're sharing so that others can give it a try! :)

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  7. I love this kind of soup, very nutritious. It's not easy to find black chicken, if not I will boil very often, hehe.

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  8. Hmmmm, I like this coz I like dang-gui....But sometimes I just wonder, what's the difference btwn this black chick and the normal chick and also the kampung chick? Aren't they all chickens? If I rear them all the same way, would it make a differece in their nutrients? I read that the dang-gui has "female-hormones" in it, that's why it can help ladies to regulate their hormones. But you'll need quite a big amount of dang-gui to leave an effect on the guys. So I think once or twice in a month shouldn't be a problem.
    Btw, my ILs don't consume anything "black" (black chic, gui-ling-gao,etc) coz they r horrified of the colour, so I haven't been eating this since my last confinment. :(

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  9. Black chicken meat very tender and sweet! I like it very much!

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  10. Jess Kitchen,
    Lots of ppl do, haha.




    Gert,
    Wow, that's pretty often.




    Little Inbox,
    I got it at Jusco :)




    Sweetylicious,
    Actually it's just the colour of the skin :)
    Nothing to be scared. The chicken is actually white when still alive, the feathers are all white.



    Bee,
    Woman need to bou once a while, hehehe.




    Busygran,
    Oh, is it becos of the dang guei?



    Min,
    Oh, I never knew that black chicken is hard to find :p




    Meldylocks,
    You won't want to know what happened to my guy buddy after consuming just one rice bowl of diluted "pat chan" in 2 weeks. Don't play play with women's herbs oh.
    For us women, to really "bou", have to make it more concentrated, but for family's nourishment, a few pieces in a big pot of soup is fine la.




    Pete,
    Yawoh, super tender,

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  11. 很滋补的一道汤水;让我想起我也很久没褒汤了。

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  12. A bowl of this would be excellent for the cold weather we are experiencing now, with so much of rain showers.

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  13. Is it suitable for 6yrs old kid? I wanted to try to boil this soup but afraid Angelica might too heaty for her.

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  14. Jes,
    If you feed ur kid Bak Kut Teh, why not this?
    Just 3 pcs only for one big pot of soup.

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  15. Is the black dates cause heath?.... can't remember long time didn't drink this kind of soup...my gal's hands foots always feeling cold but her body is those heaty type 'yit dai'. If she ate lot of biscuit the next day will heaty that's y I seldom give her snack

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  16. Jes,
    This soup is basically a warming soup, so is all soups with dates.
    Dates are considered warm. But without seed is better.
    It's a big pot of soup, if you were to divide up the amount of dates/bowl of water, you do the calculation.
    Actually whenever kids eat biscuits, they should always drink lots of water.

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  17. Tq Wendy..will reduce the amount of ingredient

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  18. Jes,
    Actually what I meant was "concentration".

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  19. For the black chicken, can I chop it into small pieces to put it to boil instead of whole chicken?

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