Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup (with snow /white fungus) for dry mouth, dry skin & late nights

In this video, I'm going to share a Chinese herbal chicken soup recipe for dry mouth, dry throat or dry skin, just generally feeling quite dry. Hence, this soup is also good for people who sleep very late, especially sleep after 11 pm. This is because people who sleep very late are very prone to those symptoms that I just mentioned. Hi everyone, my name is Shirley, a Chinese medicine practitioner and a pharmacist in Australia. In this channel, I share Chinese herbal knowledge and share very simple herbal recipes that you can cook easily at home. If you want to learn more, don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell so you will be notified when new video releases. I recently seen a large surge of traffic to my previous video, which is this one, that is a herbal dessert soup for better sleep and better skin. So it seems like many people are very interested in herbal soup and the snow fungus because that recipe has snow fungus in it. I guess many people searched and came to my recipe because there are recent studies showing that white fungus has a number of health benefits such as anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-aging effects. I probably won't go too much in here because you can google it yourself, but make sure you only go to the government research institute or credible website to read their study. I also received many requests to make more videos for herbal soup. So I thought today combining these requests and interests, I will make a Chinese herbal soup that also contains snow fungus, but this is a savory soup. So now you have two ways or two options to incorporate white fungus in your diet if you want to start to do that. This recipe I'm going to share, it's quite common and classical in Asian cuisine. What make it classical is due to the combination of three main ingredients. They are Sha Shen, English is granular roots, Yuzhu, Solomon's seals or the white fungus, snow fungus or English or academy name is the Trimella. There are varieties of recipes out there, but this is my take on it. I just want to make it simple and effective for you. So the first two ingredients which are the Sha Shen and Yuzhu. They both are slightly cold in nature and they both are yin tonic in Chinese herbal category. They share very similar functions, that's why we often use them as a pair. And this is because they complement and enhance each other actions. Their functions are tonifying the lung yin and the stomach yin. That means they both can moisten the lung and the stomach, the Chinese medicine organ system, not the Western medicine one. They both can generate fluid and because of this function, we use them to relieve dry throat, dry mouth and thirst because these functions are related to our lung and our stomach. So next is the snow fungus or the white fungus, has very similar effect to the Sha Shen and the Yuzhu. It also moistens the lung and the stomach yin, it also can generate fluids. The difference is it's actually neutral. So compared to the other two, these two slightly cold Chinese herbs, in a way because it's neutral, so it can be used for most people and during most seasons. And that's why it absolutely makes sense to me when the study shown that it exhibits potent anti-aging effect. This is because from 1000 years ago, the Chinese medicine practitioner already noticed the lung is actually interconnected with our skin. So we know that if we moisten our lung, our skin will look better. And I won't go too much into it because I'll probably can spend half an hour to talk about this topic. But that's what we learn in Chinese medicine. Okay, enough theories for me now. Now let's look at the recipe again. I actually also added the ginger, the fresh ginger and the red dates. Both of them are slightly warming. The red date is a blood and a cheetonic. These two are cold and that's why I add small amount of warm ingredients in there to balance out the recipe as well as to support our digestion because too many cold herbs sometimes can weaken our digestion. If you like goji berries like me and do not have very good eyesight like me, you can add some goji berries. They are e-tonic and they are neutral and it gives a sweet flavor to the soup. The meat I decided to use is the chicken. This is because chicken is slightly warming in Chinese medicine. And also because of these three ingredients are quite bland or doesn't have a strong flavor, the chicken will give a sweetness to the soup as well and also can enhance the taste. So overall this recipe is slightly cooling because of the shashen and the yuzhu because they are cooling. Hence this recipe is more suitable during dry or not so cold season such as autumn. You can also use it leading up to the autumn because when the lung it's motions they are happy and you probably have a less chance of dry throat, dry mouth as well as common cold. If you often sleep late especially after 11 p.m and notice you have the symptoms that I just mentioned, then it is a good recipe to try. You could also use this recipe to prevent the symptoms such as knowing that your deadlines either at work or at school are coming up soon and unavoidably you kind of know you might have to have a few late nights. Then you can try this soup leading up to the busy time during that time or immediately after. Maybe just once or twice a week. You can also alternate between this recipe with the other, the sweet soup that I mentioned. Make sure you check out this video. So you could have one week of savory and one week of sweet soup. Let's soak the white fungus in water to soften it. Soak at least 30 to 60 minutes. To get a cleaner taste and clearer soup broth, we need to blanch the chicken. Remember start with cold water. For more detailed instructions on how and why we need to blanch the meat, please check out this video. Meanwhile, soak the dry herbs to get rid of dirt and soften them for easier cooking later. You don't have to soak the goji berries if the goji berries are fresh and already soft. When blanching is done, pick the chicken out and rinse them quickly to get rid of blood residual. Once the white fungus is softened, remove the root section because it is hard and not very palatable. And then you cut it into smaller pieces. Fill the pot with about 3 liters of water. Bring the water to boil. Add the chicken, Chinese herbs except the goji berries, gingers and the white fungus. Let them cook for high heat for about 15 to 20 minutes. Then reduce the heat to medium but maintain gently simmering. Let them cook for 60 to 90 minutes, stirring occasionally. 15 minutes before turning off the fire, add the goji berries. At the end, add seasoning to enhance the flavor if required. Okay, so now the soup is ready. Let me try it first. I really like it. It already tastes quite soothing on the throat here because I think the snow fungus, after you cook it for a long time, it's kind of become a little bit gluey. As you know, it contains a lot of collagen and also that's why it's good for our skin. So that sensation is kind of quite quickly coating the throat. So it feels not only refreshing but it also relieves the dryness. I hope you like it too. Yeah, so that's all for me today about this recipe. So don't forget to subscribe, like and share this video to people that you know might also enjoy learning Chinese herbs. And the soup is not just about cooking. I teach you or I share with you all the reasons why I put some herbs together and how they support each other. And on that note, I want to let you know that I'm actually in the process of developing and design an online course for you. Anyone can join from around the world. I'm going to run online. So I'll leave a link below in the description box. So do go to that page in my website. It has more information. I haven't put out all the proper content yet. But what's on top of my head is I'm going to teach you some simple theory like the yin and yang theories, the five elements. I'll teach you all the Chinese medicine organ system. So you have some basic understanding and you will learn bit and pieces about the herbs, the food, how they work together, how you can even create a very simple recipe based on how you feel. But very, very simple, basic. If you have more questions, do feel free to email me directly or go to my Instagram or Facebook. You can direct message me if you want to know more about the course or if you have any ideas that you want to suggest to me. I would love to hear all your ideas and suggestions. I will be greatly appreciated. I think that's it. So do go to my link and check it out. Love to hear from you. And that's all from me today. So I'll see you in the next video. Thank you. Thank you for watching. Bye.