“I wanted to make this album for a long time and finally have a double boiler. I hope you will try and make this. This was taught to me by my ex MIL who hailed from China. She passed away nearly 3 decades ago but she taught me a lot of 康熙帝 Kāngxī Di’s cooking and Chinese herbs.” – 25th January 2015 (Facebook)
My original blog was lost but due to Facebook’s albums I was able to retrieve some photos and this album. Today while talking to a lady I was suddenly reminded of this as I do need to partake in some goodness aka pure chicken essence with herbs, as I am still not as strong after suffering and recovering from Covid19. I need to renew my energy and boast some strength.
I decided to take out my double boiler and start working on ‘healing’ myself a bit. So I resurfaced these photos and redo this album in my new blog. This time my blog would never be lost as hubby has saved all in 3 different places, 3 copies – kekekekeke He had also written a program to update automatically each time I update it.
As I boil more and more ‘healing soups’ I will be posting new photos but for the moment these are old photos just to explain the procedures. I never post soups much even though we have herbal soups at least twice a week. I always thought people know how to boil soups. Recently I realised this is not actually true.
I do know that nowadays many people won’t be boiling tonic soups or make chicken essence like this but I have always drank chicken essence this way. I would never drink the jars stuff as when comparing the taste, the jar stuff tasted like chicken stock with ajinomoto. To me they are only suitable for seasoning a dish.
A lot of tonic stuff nowadays come in packets and you only need to steep them with hot water. Again that’s fine but they are not the Real McCoy.
This IS The Real McCoy.
Chicken Essence – The Real McCoy
Equipment
- A double boiler
- A bowl to fit perfectly
- Chopping board
- Good cleaver
Ingredients
- 1 Chicken
- Pao shen (泡参) is what I am using today
- Love for the consumer kekekekeke
Notes
These was a bowl for son and a bowl for hubby as son was having exams.
One cleaned chicken 
Working station – the double boiler from my mother 
Chop the chicken breaking all the bones and flesh but not the skin.
This is pao shen (泡参) I bought from a famous Kedai Ubat in Malaysia
When chicken is ready place a perfectly fit bowl with your pao shen (泡参) right in the middle on the top pan of your double boiler 
…….like this….
Squeeze your chicken on top 
Then remove the skin and any fats 
Remove as much skin and fat as you can
After 4 hours or so simmering (remember to add water at the bottom) 
The chicken becomes very dry. Remove and you can boil water to use as a light broth or just bin or pick some and dip with soy sauce and birdeye chilli 
when the chicken is removed….
Pure chicken and pao shen (泡参) essence as you have not added any water
Nearly 6 hours but in between one can do other things, gardening, watch television, reading, mop the floor etc.
