Cabbage Chicken Soup

1. Wash the carcass and place in the crock pot (it’ll be good if you can tie it up in cheesecloth for easy removal). Fill with water until just a little over the carcass.

2. Place the whole onion, tomatoes, garlic cloves, dates and wolfberries (if using) in and leave to boil on high in the crockpot for about 30 minutes. Then turn to low and leave it overnight.

3. Next morning, or after about 8 hours, pour it out into a thermos (if not serving immediately). You can cool it and refrigerate this as chicken stock.

4. When ready to serve, pour the broth into a pot, discarding the bones as much as possible (leftover bones are ok as they would tend to sink anyway, so I left mine in for more flavour as it boils with the cabbage).

5. Turn onto high heat and stir in the soy sauce. Put in the cabbage and carrots.

6. Boil until the cabbage is translucent, about 15 minutes, with the pot covered. Season with salt and pepper. My soup was a bit light so I opened the lid to let it evaporate and intensify in flavour.

7. Beat the eggs. With the broth boiling rapidly, slowly pour in the eggs in a thin ribbon, using a fork to gently stir the eggs into thin strings in the broth.

8. Once all the eggs are in, turn off the heat immediately, dish out and serve.

You can easily cut the time short by doing the whole soup on the stovetop, boiling the carcass for at least an hour to release all the goodness.