Fresh Yam, Codonopsis and Quail Soup

Why people make this soup

It is heartbreaking to watch a child who barely recovers from one cold before catching another. Some children seem to fall into this cycle as soon as they start nursery or school, and their parents start looking for ways to support their immune resilience from the inside. In Chinese food-therapy, this pattern of repeated respiratory infections in children is often attributed to insufficient qi — the body’s vital energy — making it harder to mount a strong defence against the inevitable stream of germs that circulate in early childhood. The advice is to use gentle, nourishing soups between illness episodes to gradually strengthen the constitution. This soup stars quail, which Chinese tradition has called “the ginseng of poultry” for centuries — a small bird with a remarkable nutritional profile, mild and easy for children to digest. Paired with codonopsis root (a gentle, ginseng-like tonic), fresh Chinese yam, and red dates, this makes a sweet, comforting soup that the whole family can share.