The cooking revolution is in full swing, I mean home cooks are that much better period. Thank you Food Network, home cooks are kicking major ass. Look at all the different cuisines that are promulgated on television these days it is amazing. Italian, Indian, Pac Rim, Hawaiian, Southern, Asian, it is endless! So for those of you that want to quit using the instant mixes for soups I'll go over some tips that can make you keep up with your counterparts that are becoming self proclaimed master home chefs. I'll post a few Youtube videos for you too. But let's get into some basics.
Chicken Soup
Tools- sharp knife, medium size stainless steel stock pot, slotted spoon, wooden spoon.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 whole chicken, 3 1/2 - 4 lbs. (Legs, wings, breast removed) But keep all parts it will all go into the pot
Kosher salt
2 inches of fresh ginger chopped (optional)
3 large round onion, peeled cut into quarters
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
6 stalks of celery chopped
Water to cover the entire pieces of chicken (Filtered)
Directions:
1. Take your pot at least 6-8 quarts, place it on the stove over low heat. You want to prime the pot, low heat gets it going as you prep.
2. Using a knife that's sharp, remove the legs, separate the thighs, and drumsticks, remove the wings, and cut off the tips, remove the breast and cut in half, save the back bones.
3. Put the vegetable oil into the pot, turn heat up to medium high. In home cooking, there's not need to use super high heat you will smoke out your house, and possibly ruin your cookware.
4. When hot, toss in the ginger, round onions, carrots and celery, cook for about 10 minutes really melt that down, so all of that flavor comes out.
5. Add in the chicken pieces, sprinkle generous amount of salt, then cover. Sweat out the chicken juices, cover for about 20 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn heat down to medium low, or low.
6. Uncover pot, add in room temperature filtered water to cover all of the chicken pieces, leave about 3 inches of room from the top. Cover again. TURN UP HEAT TO HIGH AND BOIL, then bring it down to low and simmer over low heat for about 2 hours.
The Finish
Once the simmering is done, uncover pot, let cool completely. Remove all of the chicken pieces and shred them into-shreds and set aside, remove skin an bones, save meat, this will go into your serving bowls. Remove all vegetables and toss it out.
To prevent food poisoning, once the pot is cool to the touch, cover the pot again, and place in the refrigerator overnight. Soups are usually prepped a day before, or even a few days before.
So what is in your refrigerator?
Shredded chicken meat & The liquid (broth/stock)
Are you ready to serve soup?
OK, now the fun part, you are ready to serve soup to your family. Take out the shredded chicken meat, keep covered, set aside.
Take out the pot, you will notice that there is a lot of stuff at the top of the soup pot, well this is all that scum, not good, lots of fatty stuff, and pieces of bones an flesh. Use the slotted spoon to remove all of this into the trash. What's left should be a clear pot of broth.
Get your serving bowls out, let's say 4 people. Put about 4 oz. of shredded chicken meat on the bottoms of each bowl.
You can have fresh vegetables cut, or herbs. Such as watercress, cabbage, scallions etc. whatever you can get.
For other seasonings you can use more salt, peppers, etc. hot sauces, soy sauces, sky is the limit, have it at the table.
Heat up the cold soup over high heat until it boils, then turn off heat. Safely spoon hot broth over the chicken shreds in each bowl. Voila! Soup.
This is just the general rule for making soup, once you get the method down, practice with different flavorings, and be creative. Watch a lot of Food Network, find cooking blogs online, and you'll be set for being the next Soup Nazi.
Here's a Youtube video on basic chicken soup making
What I wrote is just how I do things, by all means use
other's advice too. We are all learning. :)
© 2017
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