Astragalus and Squab Soup

Why people make this soup

Allergic rhinitis is extremely common in Hong Kong, especially among children, and it tends to flare up with seasonal changes. Chinese medicine categorises rhinitis into three constitutional patterns: lung-qi deficiency, spleen-qi deficiency, and kidney-qi deficiency. This particular soup is designed specifically for the lung-qi deficiency type — where the sneezing is frequent, the nasal discharge is clear and watery, the symptoms worsen after physical exertion or tiredness, and the person tends to feel easily fatigued.

Rather than simply trying to suppress the symptoms, the food-therapy approach here is to build up the body’s defensive (wei) qi — the energy that, in Chinese medicine, is thought to protect the surface of the body from wind and cold. Astragalus is the primary ingredient for this, paired with longan for nourishment, cinnamon bark for warming, and squab as a protein-rich base with a long history in Cantonese tonic cooking.