Secret Chinese Recipes: Black Chicken

The thing about secrets is that if they are known, then they wouldn’t be secrets anymore would they? That being established, the word “secret”, when attached to “Chinese recipes” immediately connotes mystery, magic, or at the very least exotic. As to being palatable, we watch enough Andrew Zimmern to know that it just might be good, but requires a lot of courage to attempt ingestion. But really, when you think about it, the Chinese are masters of deliciousness, why would they have secret recipes to dishes that aren’t good?

Chances are, the more secret the recipe, the more magical, mystical, and exotic it is, the more mind-blowingly good. There may be healing powers or aphrodisiac properties in it or it may contain ingredients that would unleash some kind of power within you.

A great “secret” recipe to unearth would be one for black chicken soup. Black chicken, or wuji as it’s called in China, is also known as silkie, and it is a smallish type chicken native to China and Southeast Asia, but is now found in frozen food sections in a lot of supermarkets in the U.S. And as its name suggests, it is black, from its skin all the way to the bones. It has been cooked and eaten for more than a thousand years because if its incredible healing properties. These days its considered one of the new “superfoods” because of its awesomely high levels of antioxidants. Recipes for this intriguing ingredient usually involves making a soup with it with yams, wolfberries and ginseng.

Its color may put you off, but eternal youth sounds like a pretty good motivation.