Easy Chinese Black Chicken Soup (Silkie Chicken)

A bowl of Chinese black chicken soup with red dates, goji berries, scallops and dried shiitake mushrooms.

5 from 35 votes

Easy Chinese Black Chicken Soup (Silkie Chicken)

This easy Chinese Black Chicken Soup, also known as Silkie Chicken, is a traditional Chinese soup recipe that is delicious, nutritious AND only calls for 5 ingredients! I've made this Black Chicken soup recipe non-herbal, as many younger Asians find it hard to accept the strong flavours of herbal soup, but it's still very good for you!

Prep Time5

Cook Time2 30

Course: Appetizer, Main Course, Soup

Cuisine: Cantonese, Chinese, singaporean, Southeast Asian

Servings: people

Calories: 858kcal

Author: Zen

Equipment

Pot/ Dutch oven
Spoon or ladle to skim the scum
Bowls (Heat-proof) To soak the dried scallops and dried mushrooms

Ingredients

1 Black chicken (Silkie Chicken) Asians usually like to give their chicken a salt rub before washing it off. The USDA however advises against washing meat before cooking. (See notes about blanching.) You can use a scissors to cut the neck and feet off the chicken carcass. Add these to the soup to boil too. (Cutting them exposes the bone which helps to make the soup a little more gelatinous (gives it a better texture.))
6 dried shiitake mushrooms Soaked for 30 minutes in hot water before cooking. After soaking, remove the stems but add them & the mushroom caps to the pot of soup along with the soaking water.
5 dried scallops Soak for 30 minutes in hot water first- add to pot of soup along with the soaking water. Substitute: dried conch or dried squid, or 1 of these conpoy substitutes
3 jujubes Seeds removed. Substitute: 2 honey dates
2-3 Tablespoons goji berries Also known as wolf berries .Rinsed then soaked for 5 minutes.
10 + 1 Cups Water
Salt, to taste Add it towards the end of the boiling process, if not the soup will become too salty after the liquid evaporates off. I added about ¼teaspoon but add as per your tastebuds. (Note that the dried scallops also add sodium to the soup.)

Instructions

Optional, 30 minutes before you want to make soup: rinse then soak the scallops and shiitake mushrooms. Whilst waiting for them to soak, remove the seeds from the jujubes. (If not, you can do this whilst the chicken is simmering later.)
Add the black chicken, red dates (deseeded), soaked scallops, soaked shiitake mushrooms and 10 cups of water to the pot and bring to the boil on high.
Note: remember to pour in the soaking water too. If you didn't soak the scallops/ mushrooms earlier, no worries, just add them 30 minutes later, after soaking.
Once the soup has started boiling, lower the heat to medium. (I turn it down from 9, which is the max on a Bosch induction stove, to 6.) The water should now be simmering and not boiling.
Note: Whilst boiling extracts more flavour from the soup, I prefer to simmer the chicken to keep the meat tender as I find it wasteful to throw it away after stewing!
Keep simmering for the next 2-3 hours. (The longer the better, but after 2 hours the soup is already quite tasty.)
Note: DO NOT ADD SALT TILL THE END or the salty taste may become super concentrated later.
After 45 minutes or so have passed, check that the soup is not at a full boil (as the water evaporates, the simmer may turn into a boil- in that case, either turn down the heat or add more water.)
Note: How quickly the water evaporates depends on the width of the pot (I used a le Creuset standard Dutch oven), the heat of your stove etc, so if you find the water level going very low, please add some more. Using a fire of 5-6, I only needed to add 1 extra bowl of water to the pot, at the end of the boil (i.e. in total I used 12 cups of water to 1 black chicken) but, as mentioned, this may vary for you.
10 minutes before you want to serve the soup, add the goji berries.
Add a bit of salt to the soup, then taste.
Note: The scallops are naturally salty so start with a sprinkle and, if not sufficient, add a bit more.
Once to your taste, scoop and serve. You should have enough to fill 2-3 Chinese bowls.

Notes

Blanching

Chinese people usually blanch their meat before braising or making soup. I would definitely do that for pork but, for chicken, I cheat and just skim the scum off with a ladle as the soup boils. (See above for photos- the end result is pretty clear despite not being pre-blanched!)

Note: the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its accuracy.

Nutrition