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Chinese Boil Chicken Soup was a frequently prepared meal in my childhood home. My Dad used to prepare this often and my siblings & I loved it. It was like 2 meals in one.
First your soup, then another plate with your rice, chicken & sauce to eat those with. As this is an authentic Chinese dish, you may have to go to a Chinese grocery store to purchase the ingredients.
You would start the preparation by using a large deep soup pot to boil your whole chicken in a broth which will later be developed into your soup by adding vegetables and other ingredients once the chicken is cooked and removed from the broth.
Usually we add ginger, Chinese red plums, salted corn turnip, dried shrimp, pak choy, carrots, and vermicelli noodles. When my Dad used to make it, instead of the noodles he used small pieces of something called Chinese impyeow, which had a spongy unique taste which we loved, however, if you can find it, it is quite expensive so the vermicelli is a nice substitute.
After your chicken is cooled, you would chop it in medium pieces on a cutting board, cook a pot of rice, and create a sauce which consists of a little oil, scallion, minced ginger, dark soy sauce in a small bowl and some minced pepper is optional. This is an absolutely delicious dish. I hope you try & enjoy it. Leave me a comment below.
Chinese Boiled Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Whole Chicken
- 1 tsp. Salt
- 1 Gallon Water
- 10 Chinese dried red plums
- 2 Chinese salted corn turnip cut in small pieces
- 1/4 cup Ginger sliced
- 1/2 pack Chinese Impyeow 0r 3.5 oz. chinese vermicelli noodles
- 3/4 cup Dried Shrimp
- 1 bunch Pak Choy
- 1 lg Carrot sliced in thin rounds
- 1 cup Snow Peas optional
- 2 cups Cooked White Rice
- 2 stalks Scallion cut fine
- 2 tsp. Ginger (minced) optional
- 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
- 1/4 cup Mushroom or Dark Soy Sauce
- **optional 1/2 Scotch Bonnet Pepper
Instructions
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Wash chicken, rub with 1 tsp. of salt, let sit about 1 hour.
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Place water in a deep soup pot, bring to a boil on high heat. Add the whole chicken, sliced ginger, plums, and corned turnips. Add more water if needed to cover chicken. Once it starts to boil, reduce to medium-high and cover.
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While soup is cooking, you may cook your rice and set aside.
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Continue to cook about 30 minutes or chicken is fully cooked. (When juices run clear when poked). Remove chicken to a large dish and cool about 20 minutes.
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Chop up chicken when cooled. (actually you can do this before finishing off the last part of your soup. so turn off soup in the mean time.
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Continue simmering soup on medium heat. Add Impyeow or noodles, shrimp, snow peas and carrots. Cook about 5 minutes. Cut up Pak Choy and add right when finished, turn off heat.
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To make sauce for chicken:Cut up scallions & ginger( if using) and place in a small glass bowl, heat oil in a small pot. When hot, pour oil over scallion & ginger, then add soy sauce and set aside. ** optional : for a spicy option, chop up a half or desired amount of scotch bonnet pepper to add to the sauce.
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To serve, you may serve soup alone or add a little chicken, rice and just va little sauce. Then on another plate will be your rice & chicken. You may use the sauce to dip the chicken sparingly. And put a little sauce on your rice.
Recipe Notes
My mom did a much simpler version bc cracking the bones (adds more flavour), lots of ginger, minced garlic, Chinese cooking wine and green onions. I also add some of the pepper sauce (I add a bit of oyster sauce to it as well) that you use for the chicken. My mom would add chinese sauce on top of the rice when it was almost done steaming. Did this for my Portuguese friends in Canada and they loved it!
Thanks for leaving a comment Kimika. I do love lots of ginger & garlic too. Some of my family members also like the spicy version which I forgot to put as optional, so just updated. Your Mom’s version sounds good too, but we add our green onions to the sauce and use that for the soup, the chicken & the rice.I guess we all tend to stick to the versions we grew up on.