Homemade essence of chicken

Chicken second courses

In Southeast Asia, especially within the local Chinese communities of Malaysia and Singapore, chicken essence has long ousted Red Bull as the energizer tonic. Like Red Bull, it could boost your concentration and keep you awake for hours like that NZT pill from Limitless (or at least that’s the lore). But unlike Red Bull, chicken essence actually tastes good. It has the deep, robust flavor of chicken coursing through it, thanks to an umami-rich jus you get from the drippings of an oven-roasted bird, but with less fat and a bolder, purer flavor. While chicken essence started off centuries ago as a niche component of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), today it’s widely available and is used extensively by mothers, students, and people from all walks of life, prized for its energizing effects on the mind and body. Moms might give it to their children before major exams, college students might take shots of it for those nights when the midnight oil has to keep burning, and office workers might down bottles of it in their chase for deadlines. As Brand’s—one of the famous chicken essence brands in Malaysia (or at least the most aggressively marketed one)—puts it, chicken essence is for “busy people who want to seize the day.”

Oct. 1, 2021, 11:49 a.m.