Healing Broths — TCM Medicinal Soups from Yung Kitchen
Soup was always more than a first course in our family. Growing up, there was always a clay pot simmering on the stove — for hours, quietly bubbling, fragrant with astragalus and dried jujubes. My mother Wai Wah did not cook these soups from a recipe. She cooked them by season, by circumstance, by what the day called for. That is the philosophy behind this collection.
Healing Broths from the TCM Kitchen Tradition
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), soups are not a side dish — they are medicine in everyday form. The term 藥膳 (Yàoshàn) describes the connection between kitchen and healing arts: dishes prepared with therapeutic intention that taste like ordinary food. The Cantonese kitchen has refined this tradition over centuries. What is known in Hong Kong and southern China as 湯水 (Tōngshuǐ) — literally „soup water“ — is for many families a daily ritual.
At China Restaurant Yung, we prepare these soups according to the Yung family tradition: slowly, in individual clay pots, for several hours. The ingredients come directly from China — astragalus slices, longan flesh, dried jujubes, goji berries, dang shen root. Each ingredient is chosen with intention. Each soup has an inner logic rooted in the TCM Five Elements system.
This collection documents our healing broths — as culinary knowledge, as family history, and as an invitation to explore.
The TCM Philosophy Behind Each Soup
The TCM Five Elements system (Fire, Wood, Earth, Metal, Water) assigns each food a quality: a direction of action on organs and meridians, a thermal property (warming, cooling, neutral), a flavour, and a seasonal affinity. In the Yung kitchen, this means we do not simply cook „healthy“ — we cook with an awareness of balance.
A concrete example: In autumn, when the air becomes drier and the TCM lung meridian calls for particular attention, a soup with astragalus and longan comes to the table. In summer, when heat and dampness dominate, we favour cooling ingredients. This is not an esoteric practice — it is a form of attentiveness to the relationship between body and environment, cultivated by the Cantonese kitchen over centuries.
Preparation in clay pots (砂煲, Shābāo) is essential: the material stores heat evenly, and the long cooking times ensure that the active constituents of the herbs and roots fully pass into the broth. At least two hours — often longer. That cannot be rushed. That is the point.
„I do not cook these soups for the menu. I cook them because I know they do good — and because my mother taught me this.“ — Wai Wah Yung
Soups in This Collection
We are building this collection gradually — soup by soup, with full documentation of the ingredients, the TCM assignments and the preparation method. The first healing broth we document:
- Astragalus & Longan Healing Broth (黃芪圓肉瘦肉燉湯) — strengthen Qi, nourish blood, build energy. Documentation coming soon.
Yung Kitchen and Our Health Collection
The healing broths are part of Yung Kitchen — our kitchen collection for dishes that combine tradition with nutritional awareness. There you will also find our other signature dishes, including the Red Bean Agar-Agar Pudding and the Steamed Romaine Lettuce with garlic and goji.
All dishes in this collection are part of our Health & Nutrition section — an honest, non-exaggerating perspective on what Cantonese cuisine can mean for everyday eating.
Explore further: