16 Nov Get Over Your Cold Chicken Soup

My whole life, the answer to illness has always been chicken soup. It started with my grandma Gogo (no, that really was her name, not a grandma nickname) and has been kept alive by my mom. Even at the height of my vegetarian years when I was felled by the flu to end all flues, my mama tucked me into the family room couch, lit a fire and made me chicken soup, which I slurped up gladly.

What’s so great about homemade chicken soup when you’re recovering from or fighting off a cold? Try this on for size: hydration (liquid broth), protein for recovery (in the broth and the meat), minerals (from the simmered bones), vitamins (from the veggies), steam (good for your sinuses) and comfort (good for your soul).

Sounds pretty good, right? But you think picking up a couple cans of soup is easier? Maybe … except for all the sodium, and not knowing the quality of the ingredients, and not having the convenience of a big vat in your refrigerator to eat for days … oh, and all of the left over meat to use in other meals.  I almost forgot: have I mentioned how easy it is to make? You can spend some serious time resting on the couch between the steps.

Of course, you don’t have to be sick to enjoy this. Homemade chicken soup is the perfect light but cozy meal to satisfy your belly and fortify your immune system.  Either way, here’s to a healthy fall.

Super Basic Get Over Your Cold Chicken Soup

•  1 chicken (a small fryer will do)
• 1 large carrot, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 large celery stalk, ditto
• ½ large onion, diced
• sea salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: handful chopped kale, chard or collards stems, and/or large handful of a tender green (e.g. baby spinach or tatsoi) roughly chopped
• Optional: ½ C brown rice
• Water, as much as you need

What to do:

1. Rinse your chicken and pull out the innards (these should be neatly packaged in paper inside the core of the bird – just pull out and set aside – don’t throw away!).
2. Place rinsed chicken in a large (you can add the neck too – also should be tucked inside the core), deep pot and fill with water until the chicken is juuuuust about covered (a little less than completely covered is fine if your pot isn’t that deep).
3. Bring water to a simmer, but do not boil. If you can’t cover chicken with water, use tongs or whatever is handy to gently roll chicken over to other side (so the more exposed side is now on the bottom of the pot and fully submerged). Simmer until meat easily falls off bone – test by picking up a leg and giving it a gentle tug. If it separates fairly easily from the rest of the body, you’re good to go; if it’s as strongly attached as when you plopped chicky in the water, give it more time.
4. As chicken simmers, you may notice a foam build up around the edges of the pot. Use a slotted spoon to scoop up this foam and throw away. You may want to do this a couple of times.
5. Carefully remove chicken from the water and place on a large plate or platter to cool off until you can touch it without burning your fingers.
6. At this point, the chicken broth will be pretty bland tasting. To concentrate the flavor, while chicken is cooling, add onions, carrots, celery and other veggies, except leafy vegetables (add when done reducing broth) to the broth, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste and simmer until broth has reached desired concentration of flavor. Probably at least 20 mins.
7. When chicken is cool enough to handle grab a largish bowl and two smallish bowls, and begin stripping meat, skin and fat off the carcass – meat pieces go in large bowl, skin and fat go into one of the small bowls (or a plastic bag, if you don’t compost). Once chicken is completely stripped of flesh (this can take a while if you want to be meticulous), tear ~ 1/3 of the meat into large one or two-bite sized pieces and put into other small bowl – this will go back into the soup in a bit. Toss your compost and store the other meat for later (chicken pot pie? curry chicken salad? lots of options for the leftovers).
8. You have two options regarding the rice. Either cook in a rice cooker while the chicken is simmering, then add once the broth has been reduced, or cook directly in the chicken soup – just remember that this will take ~30 minutes, use up a cup of the soup and make the rice super soft and potentially a little mushy, which isn’t a bad thing if you’re sick. If you’re choosing the latter, add to broth with the veggies in step 5.
9. When broth is happily reduced, add chicken meat, cooked rice (if you cooked separately) and any tender green leafy veggies you’re using. Taste and adjust salt and pepper for seasoning.

Notable: when chicken fat in the soup gets cold, it will solidify. You may notice a thin layer – almost like a crust – form on the top of the refrigerated leftovers. It’s fine to scoop it off, or you can just let it melt back into the broth as you reheat the soup. But really, don’t fear the fat. If you have a good quality chicken, it won’t be that fatty and natural fat is important for several reasons, not the least of which is that it helps trigger the hormones that tell your brain you’ve had enough to eat.

*Umm, yes, this bowl of soup looks extra shiny, but it’s not because of the soup, it’s because of the camera and an unfortunate mistake I made taking the picture, which I didn’t realize until after I ate the bowl of soup. Some weird lighting effects to fix the photo later… and here it looks weirdly glossy. BUT, you can still see all the yummy goodness inside, so… photos were kept.

Comments

1. Cindy says:

   November 20, 2011 at 4:42 pm

   I feel like I missed out on learning about these kinds of foods because I was a vegetarian for so many years. I’ve recently made up a totally different way of making chicken soup probably due to my lack of knowledge. But I call it a success anyway because the kids won’t touch Campbell’s anymore.

   Reply

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1. Debra Zambetti - Chicken Curry in a Hurry Salad… says:

   November 21, 2011 at 3:36 pm

   [...] I’ve been obsessed with curry chicken salad since and finally had a chance to make it with chicken soup left [...]

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