The Old Boar - Best Chicken Soup

Where are you?

Home

Best Chicken Soup

Tag it:

Written by Bear

Friday, 15 February 2008

Chicken soup is one of those underrated, often badly cooked, essentials that is not just the mainstay of any Jewish mother, but of all who like great soup. There are a thousand variations to this soup, and I will no doubt be putting up some more as we go along.

But this is your standard starter for 10 - a great, easy to drink, 100% authentic, good for all occasions, chicken soup! The trick here is, of course, great ingredients. In this case I suggest small free range chickens. Slow grown and nice and fit. If they have fat, ridiculous breasts on them, then you have chosen wrongly.

By the way, this works best when started the previous day. (Note: you can use most of this recipe just for stock)

2 chickens worth of bones
2 litres water
2 bay leaves
1 large onion
1 large carrot
1 stick celery
2 cardommon pods
bunch parsley
4 cloves garlic
1 knob butter (unsalted)
1 tbs olive oil
salt and black pepper
1 large potato, peeled and chopped - a waxy variety

For this recipe you can use either cooked or uncooked chicken carcasses. However, it is nice if at least one of them is very well roasted to give added flavour. This is simple, just chuck the bones of the chicken into a very hot oven and roast till well and truly roasted - but not burnt!

Now, onto the rest:

Chop the onion and garlic very finely. Heat a very large saucepan to a medium heat. Throw in the butter and oil. Once the butter is mostly melted, put in the chopped onions and garlic. Now, gently fry these till the all the juice has gone out of the onions and they are turning slightly brown, but not over caramelised.

Add the rest of the ingredients, except the salt and pepper and the potato. Bring to the boil then turn down to a sprightly simmer. If you have used raw chicken bones you may need to skim some scum off. Carry on simmering for a good couple of hours and until the liquid had reduced down by nearly half. (if it reduces too early, add some more water and turn the heat down a bit!)

Take off the heat and pour through a sieve into a large jug or bowl. Let cool.

Cover with cling film and shove it in the fridge over night, if possible.

The next day, take the stock out of the fridge. Carefully scrape off any fat that has solidified on top.

Put in a saucepan together with 1 large potato, chopped. Bring to the boil and season.

Once the potato is cooked, use an electric blitzer to beat the potato into the soup. The potato is optional. If you want a more stock type soup, just leave it out. I do frequently when I want a drop of soup with my lunch.

Serve with hunks of bread!

I am not sure what medicinal value chicken soup has when you are ill, but the placebo effect is really worth all the trouble!

Tags: chicken soup stock fresh
View blog reactions