Source: Economic Daily
In Korea, ginseng chicken soup is a household dish. As can be seen from its name, ginseng and chicken are essential ingredients. In fact, ginseng chicken soup will also add glutinous rice, dates, chestnuts, astragalus and other ingredients and herbs that are beneficial to the human body, so it has a good tonic effect.
Koreans have a unique set of "heat supplementation" theory, similar to the "poison attacking poison" in Chinese medicine. They believe that supplementing when the weather is very hot is conducive to letting the toxins in the body drain with sweat. Therefore, Koreans have the custom of drinking ginseng chicken soup on three days, and there are often "wonders" where the hotter the weather, the more people wait in line in front of the ginseng chicken soup shop.
In the impression of many people, ginseng chicken soup should be a traditional dish. This is not the case. In ancient times, although Koreans also had the habit of supplementing with three volts, the dignitaries at that time mostly ate beef soup. As for ginseng chicken soup, its predecessor was actually stewed chicken. It first appeared in Korea during the Three Kingdoms Period, roughly corresponding to the Eastern Han Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty in China. For the Korean people at that time, beef, pork and other meats were too expensive, ordinary people could not afford to eat, and the only meat dishes that could eat a meal with their teeth were stewed chicken. However, ginseng and other medicinal herbs were not added that year.
It was not until modern times that a practice similar to today's ginseng chicken soup appeared in Korea. At first, some wealthy families would add some ginseng powder to their chicken stew; by the 1960s, refrigerators were becoming popular in Korea, and many people began to add dried ginseng to the chicken soup to replace the previous ginseng powder.
Changes in the form of dishes have led to a change in the name of the dish. Since then, "Ginseng Chicken Soup" has replaced "Stewed Chicken" and has officially appeared in the streets and alleys of Korea, becoming a popular Futian tonic dish of Koreans.
The main ingredients of the most authentic ginseng chicken soup should be the boy chicken and the 6-year-old root ginseng, however, many restaurants choose water ginseng. For no other reason, the production of mountain ginseng itself is not large, and the price is expensive, which is difficult for ordinary consumers to afford. In addition, the main nutritional content of root cultured ginseng is not bad for 3 to 4 years, so Koreans can generally accept this practice of ginseng chicken soup shops.
Nowadays, with the improvement of living standards, people's demand for high-quality and differentiated products continues to grow, ginseng chicken soup has also ushered in many new ideas, and a series of improved versions of ginseng chicken soup have been launched. For many high-standard ginseng chicken soups, deer antler velvet, chestnuts, pine nuts, etc. are the same as ginseng, the same as the main ingredients; recently there have been "seafood ginseng chicken soup" with wild abalone, octopus, pike crab and other ingredients, "red ginseng chicken soup" with whole red ginseng, "Korean ginseng chicken soup" with various Chinese herbs, and "bamboo ginseng chicken soup" boiled in bamboo tubes.
Of course, in addition to tonic, ginseng chicken soup has a special significance in Korea. For example, the mother-in-law welcomes the son-in-law who comes to the door. In the early years, the mother-in-law would catch the chickens she usually carefully fed, stew a pot of delicious ginseng chicken soup for the son-in-law, and then tear off a chicken leg and put it in the son-in-law's bowl, and the strong love seemed to overflow from the soup bowl. Now, Koreans living in the city no longer have the conditions to raise chickens, but the custom of making ginseng chicken soup for their son-in-law has been preserved in many places. Come to think of it, those who visit their girlfriends' homes, hoping to get the consent of each other's parents and allow the two to combine, the most they want to see at the dinner table should be ginseng chicken soup.
However, it should be noted that, like other tonic foods, ginseng chicken soup has very high calories. According to statistics, the calories of one bowl of ginseng chicken soup are equivalent to 3 bowls of rice. This is probably directly related to the fat in the soup and the glutinous rice added to the chicken belly. Therefore, no matter how delicious the ginseng chicken soup is, it can't be "greedy"! (Yang Ming Source: Economic Daily)