Fresh chicken (whole or half)
A fresh whole chicken (ideally a free-range bird) cleaned, skinned of excess fat and used whole or halved for double-boiled soups. Blanched and then steamed in a covered pot of just-boiling water for hours, it gives a clear, golden, intensely chickeny broth. The default base of coconut, fish maw and conch tonic soups.
TCM properties
Nature · warming Flavour · sweet Meridians · spleen、stomach
Traditional food therapy
In Cantonese food therapy chicken is used to replenish qi, warm the centre and, in tradition, to restore deficiency and essence, the archetypal base of double-boiled tonic soups.
Cautions: read first
- Double-boiled tonic chicken soup is not suitable while a cold is still unresolved (it is said to lock the pathogen in)
- Go carefully if you have gout (long double-boiled chicken soup is high in purines)
- Drink it sparingly if you are hot, dry and flaring up
- Taking off the skin and fat and blanching it cuts the grease right down
Preparation
Chop it into pieces or use half a bird, take off the skin and fat, and blanch it (飛水) to draw out the blood. Put it into the double-boiling pot and pour in just enough boiling water to cover.
Origin
Raised on chicken farms nationwide (raw poultry cannot be imported, so it is all local). Supermarket whole birds everywhere; Asian soup-grade birds (pullet, old hen) at grocers. Supermarket labels: RSPCA Approved is a welfare mark (barn-raised), free range is a certified claim, and corn-fed (黃油雞) is mostly at Asian poultry counters; a 1.2 to 1.5 kg bird is the size for poached or soy sauce chicken
Availability in Australia
Easy to find
Where · Supermarkets; Asian poultry counters for corn-fed and pullet
What to ask for · A 1.2 to 1.5 kg bird for poached or soy sauce chicken
Checked Coles · 2026-08-18
