Chinese chicken soup

Hey everyone!


So this is a recipe I've been working on for a chinese-style chicken soup! Personally I think it's quite good, friends and family seem love it so I presume something's going right! In fact, having just made a load of it for this blog, my sister has arrived home and is very pleased to see that there's some left!

So the thing I like about this soup is that 1. It's dead easy 2. It takes about 30-40 minutes to make and 3. It can easily be modified to suit different tastes.

So without anymore waiting, here's my recipe.

Ingredients:

I do love garlic...

• 1 Chicken breast

• 3-4 Spring onions

• 3-4 Mushrooms of any kind. I went for Chestnut mushrooms today

• 1 or more Garlic cloves - this really comes down to preference. As I love garlic, I used 3

• About a thumb sized portion of Ginger root. 

• Chicken stock and roughly 900 milliliters of water

• Soy sauce - I used dark, but feel free to use any. Dark is very high in Sodium (I think) so be cautious if you're trying to lower how much you consume.

So to start off, your ingredients will look rather like this...

So once you're all set up and have your ingredients on the chopping board start by preparing everything before actually cooking (I learnt this the hard way).

• Chop the mushrooms into fine slices (not too thin though)

• The spring onions need to be shredded - this means you slice them vertically and fairly finely

• The ginger must be peeled and chopped into tiny bits

• The garlic must also be chopped into tiny bits

• Boil the kettle and add 900 millilitres of the water to a jug, along with the chicken stock and around a tablespoon or less of soy sauce

• Add the stock to a large saucepan

• Add the chicken, ginger and garlic and then bring it to boiling

• Partly cover and reduce it to simmer for about 20 minutes

• After this, remove the chicken to a plate or chopping board, and shred it with a fork. Basically tear it into bite-sized chunks.

• Add the torn chicken, spring onions and mushrooms to the saucepan and simmer for about 5 or 6 minutes

Optional - You could then boil some noodles and add them to the soup, if you like. I didn't as I don't enjoy the starchy element they bring to the dish

So that's it!

Some ideas for modifying the recipe:

• Add fresh chilli or chilli flakes

• Replace chicken with tofu to make it vegetarian

• Add a handful bean sprouts (unfortunately I've run out today)

• Add fresh mint and raw spring onion for a much more refreshing and energising soup

These aren't the most exciting suggestions, but they all make quite a difference to the final outcome.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you enjoy it!