Receta Basic Chicken Soup
Roast Chicken gone wrong.
About
a week ago, I had the Roast Chicken urge.
You know the one where you imagine a perfect roast chicken, brilliantly
browned and crisp, with melt-in-your-mouth tender white and dark meat? Well I duly went out and bought quite an
expensive Free-Range bird. I believe that
when it comes to Roast Chicken, simpler is better. Somehow, on my way to retrieve Marcella
Hazan’s super simple Roast Chicken – with two lemons and salt and pepper and
that’s it—I was waylaid by an even simpler recipe. This one eliminated the lemons. And
miraculously, it cooked even faster than Marcella’s, which was likely the deciding
factor. Then too, its author is a-famous-chef-who-shall-remain-nameless to
protect the guilty. Now this doesn’t
happen often in our house but I was not at all happy about how "cooked" the 50-minute
chicken was. So I abandoned almost the
whole bird and stuck it in the freezer.
Over the weekend, as winter bore down and it was once again freezing
here, I decided to make Chicken Soup with my partially cooked roast
chicken. I imagined a long afternoon of
soup making. That turned out to be a
complete overestimate. The chicken soup I made, full of chicken flavor, with
onions, carrots and celery submerged in a heavenly broth, was everything I’d
hoped. Astonishingly, it was made with
just 7 ingredients and start to finish took all of an hour and ten minutes to
make. Martha, of course, raises her own chickens.My chicken soup recipe came from Martha
Stewart. Now lord knows Martha is
well-known for doing everything right. But not without effort. I once marveled
at a piece she had written about catering a party where she’d peeled something
like 1800 potatoes. But her Basic
Chicken Soup recipe is a snap. (She has
23 Chicken Soup recipes on her website, if you feel inclined to spend longer
making your soup). What’s particularly
delightful is something Martha acknowledged in the preface to her recipe: that
everyone will put a personal spin on this recipe. You get all the classic goodness of a soup
often called “Jewish Penicillin” for its well known role in healing whatever ails
you—a rich broth that the chicken and the vegetables make all by themselves. My personal spin was to add handfuls of baby
spinach and a cup of store-bought Perline Pasta and Prosciutto. This partially cooked pasta was added to the
boiling soup for all of 3 minutes. It
added another dimension in texture and was a perfect counterpoint to the
chicken in the soup. I am sure there are
all kinds of add-ons you could use to make this soup your own. Leftover Rice, Noodles, Orzo, Ditalini could
all be added to the mix. We got our
carbs from a loaf of Eric Kayser’s bread. I made this soup just for the two of
us. I now have a freezer full of the
basic soup that I can defrost and add different ingredients anytime we crave a
really great bowl of soup. It really is
a wonderful one dish meal. Here is the
recipe:
Recipe for Martha Stewart’s Basic
Chicken Soup
Makes
6 servings. Takes a little over an hour
to make.
1 whole chicken
(about 4 pounds), cut into pieces (including back)
8 cups water
Coarse salt
3 medium onions,
thinly sliced (4 cups)
2 celery stalks, sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
4 garlic cloves, crushed
6 medium carrots, sliced 1/2 inch thick 1. Bring
chicken, water, and 1 tablespoon salt to a boil in a large stockpot. Skim foam.
Add onions, celery, and garlic. Reduce heat. Simmer, partially covered, for 30
minutes. 2. Remove
breasts, and set aside. Add carrots. Simmer, partially covered, for 40 minutes. Remove
remaining chicken; discard back and wings. Let cool slightly. Remove meat from
bones, and cut into bite-size pieces. 3. Stir
in desired amount of chicken, bring to a boil then add any additions you would
like to make—pasta, noodles, semi-cooked Tortolini—and cook until addition is
cooked. Add spinach or greens and when
they have started to wilt, remove from heat; Skim fat and ladle soup into bowls,
reserving the rest for another use. Season with salt. Serve.