I don’t usually make hot food in the summer, unless it’s on a bbq. But I had some tomatoes that needed to be used and some chicken breasts to cook. I thought I would make chicken and rice with a tomato stew, but it quickly turned into a beautiful soup. I threw in onions, carrots, mushrooms and some Mexican spices, along with the juice a lemon in for good measure. It was easy and fun to make. I love to let my instinct’s go and see where they take me. I would add cilantro at the end but when I made this I didn’t have any. But I will for the next batch!
It’s deep in the fall and the weather is unusually warm. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a great soup. And what better one then a classic? This time I will keep it simple but very flavorful. I had some leftover chicken broth from a previous meal and froze it. I decided instead of taking that and making stock out of it I would use it as is to be my base for this soup. It’s basically chicken water but it lended itself beautifully to this recipe. But if you don’t have any lying around regular chicken sock will work. I hope you enjoy it! I did!
3-4 quarts of water (enough to submerge a chicken)
1 onion
2 ribs of celery
3 carrots
2-3 cloves of garlic, diagnosis peeled and chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Take out bag of innards from chicken
Rinse the chicken and take any extra feathers off
Place in pot with water
Add salt, information pills pepper, garlic and bouquets garnis
Bring to boil, then lower heat to medium
Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes
Meanwhile peel and cut carrots into ¼" slices, set aside
Chop celery and onion, set aside
When chicken is done remove and let stand and cool
While chicken is cooling off put veggies in the broth
Bring to boil then simmer for 10-15 minutes
When chicken is ready to handle, peel the skin, chop it up and set aside
Strip chicken of all meat, tear into desired size pieces, set aside.
Add chicken and skin when veggies are done.
Bring soup back to a slow simmer and serve.
Notes
You can add rice, noodles, or barley, just make sure you cook these before adding them. I like to cook them just under the desired time so they finish in the soup. Bouquets Garnis is Oregano, Thyme and Savory wrapped up in Bay Leaves tied with kitchen string. I use this in all my stocks and soups. It is a great time saver and adds the perfect amount of flavor. You can make these yourself or get them at http://www.oliviersandco.com/ or at one of their stores.
Chicken broth and chicken soup are said to be good for what ails you. So with the Flu being particularly bad this year, and Jason being struck down by it, I decided to make chicken soup. Years ago I got a tip from a mother from Catalan Spain. She said to boil a chicken with one or two cloves of garlic. Strip the chicken of it’s meat and put back in the pot. Then serve. She also pointed out that the skin must be in there also. It supposedly has healing properties. Being one who does not argue with mothers, especially when they come from my ancestral homeland, I nodded my head and said yes ma’am. Of course I asked if I should add anything else? Salt and pepper, nothing else was her short but firm answer. Keep it simple, it’s what the body needs. Well, if you know me, then you know I can’t help but tinker with a recipe. I have added a few things, like bouquets garnis, onions, celery, carrots etc. I’ve also been known to throw in some ginger, barley, rice, cilantro and even alphabet noodles. Now I understand the reasoning for keeping it simple, it makes sense, and I have made it that way and it is very good. What I find when I am asked to make chicken soup is that everyone has something special they like in it. This last time was the alphabet noodles. Whether you like it simple or complex, there is one thing that does seem to cure or at least make being sick bearable, that’s homemade chicken soup. I feel the most important healing thing about making this soup isn’t just fresh ingredients, but the care that comes with it. Maybe that’s what the healing properties are.
It started as a possible trip to IKEA for meatballs. Then we realized we had some in the freezer, cure all we needed was the gravy. A quick search on the internet and presto we had the recipe. I then started to look at what else we had to go with these delicious round balls of meat. We had left over mashed potato’s, rice, veggies, kimchi and beets. It was beginning to look like things were shaping up. I had a flashback to when I lived in LA and my roommates and I had watch the movie Mermaids one too many times and started to have appetizer nights. We called this a mermaid dinner. If you’ve seen the movie you’ll understand. If not, then watch at your own risk. I started to imagine our dinner was all round and how fun that would be and what a challenge it would be with the ingredients we had. So we started with the potatoes and took the left over onions and peppers and made Coroke, a side dish a different roommate I had back in San Bernardino used to make. Usually you would make them into small patties with meat and onion and fry them, but tonight it was veggie rounds. I also had made Teriyaki chicken a couple night’s before(also a recipe from the same roommate) and used the chicken, added some ginger, red onions, garlic, egg and presto fried rice. We used our microwave egg poacher(more on that in another post) to make them. Next the ice cream scooper and a spoon were perfect for the kimchi. We now had everything, put it all together and had a great time being silly, making our evening well rounded.
Recent Comments