chicken soup recipe

I make chicken soup a lot when I'm alone because I like it, it's easy, and you can make a pot stretch for a while which reduces dinner prep time.

Here's the recipe:

Cooking time: about an hour and a half, but you're not standing in the kitchen all that time

Prep time: virtually none since most of the prep can be done while the soup is cooking

Ingredients:

• Olive oil, enough to cover the bottom of your stock pot
• Three or four carrots chopped into discs about 1/4 of an inch thick
• Three or four stalks of celery chopped into similarly wide crescent moons
• A medium onion diced
• A couple cloves of garlic, finely minced
• Water
• 2 bay leaves
• 3-5 black pepper corns
• Other spices to taste
• 2 breast & leg hunks of chicken, I don't know what these are called exactly, but it's basically all of a chicken without the rib cage chopped into two pieces which, conveniently, fit into a stock pot
• salt
• ground pepper
• A handful of parsley leaves, chopped finely
• pasta of some type

Process:

Put a large stock pot on the stove and add the olive oil. Set the heat on low. Chop up the carrots and throw them in. Turn the heat up to medium. Stir every now and again. Chop up the celery and throw it in. If you time it right, the carrots will start to brown right when you throw the celery in. This is awesome because the natural sugars of the carrots caramelize to create a great roasted and sweet flavor. After a few minutes, start chopping up the onion and throw that in. You may need to add more olive oil during the cooking process depending on the moisture levels of your veggies. Chop up the garlic very fine. When the onions have started to become translucent add the garlic. Be careful not burn the garlic, adding more oil if necessary. When the garlic starts to brown rush the pot to the faucet and fill it halfway with water. Throw in the bay leaves, pepper corns, and other spices that you like (I like tyme sometimes). Add the chicken and more water to cover the chicken. Bring to a boil covered and reduce the heat to a slight boil.

Let boil until the chicken meat falls off the bones, probably 20-30 minutes. With a pair of tongs and a fork, pull out the chicken and separate the meat from the rest of it. Don't be picky, chicken fat tastes good, so it will only help. I usually aim to get most of the skin off and to take out all of the bones & gristle. Using the fork, shred the chicken and then add it back into the soup.

Adjust the heat so that the soup is just barely boiling and let boil for a few minutes. Using a ladel, remove the fat that builds up on the surface, and set it aside in a bowl. I don't try to get all of it out as I add it back later. The point is to get most of it out so you can decide how much you want to be in there. Repeat the fat removal process for 20 minutes or so.

Add salt and some ground pepper. I usually use sea salt and start with a mound about the diameter of a quarter (or a 50 euro coin). Test the salt & pepper levels (you'll probably need to add some). Let boil for a few more minutes, remove more fat, test the salt & pepper. Repeat as necessary.

In a separate pot, add water and salt for pasta and bring to a boil. Cook the pasta as specified on the packaging, but take off the heat a little early as the soup will continue to cook the pasta. You don't want the pasta crunchy, but maybe a little bit firmer than you like.

When the pasta is almost ready, decide how much of the fat you want to return to the pot. In my mind, the more the merrier, but the choice is up to you. Add the fat, and the chopped up parsley. I like to turn up the heat at this point so I get a really good rolling boil to mix the fat back in.

When the pasta is ready serve it in bowls and cover with soup. Enjoy!

When I make this, I'm the only one eating it so it makes dinner for 4 or 5 nights. I usually add more water a few times as I heat it up.

Normally, I try to cool it off a little bit before I put it back in the fridge. I usually draw it a nice cold bath and let it soak for a while. Last night I forgot it was soaking and left it out over night. Doh! Well, I figured I could try to rescue it so today I added a lot of water and boiled it for a good 20 or 30 minutes on high. Everything seems ok in the digestion department, but I wonder what risks I just took.

You'll notice that I don't add the pasta to the soup itself. This allows you to keep eating the soup throughout the week without having to worry about the pasta getting soggy. It's really not that big of a deal to cook the pasta fresh each night since you have to heat the soup up anyway. Just throw the pasta water on first, then get the soup out and heat it up on medium and they should be ready together.