Grandma Sophie�s Chicken Soup
Are we sick yet? We�ve had plenty of time to rebreathe germs from those around us, and the weather certainly has been ideal in most of the country to drive everyone indoors and deprive us all of fresh (low germ concentration) air. Now is the time to pull out the chicken soup.
But first a candid confession: The Soup Lady has never been able to produce a decent pot of chicken soup to save her ladle-lovin� soul. And so we turn to an expert: Howie of the Thousand Dollar Vegetable Soup comes to the rescue with what he calls �the best Jewish penicillin available.� I believe the man, and if you tried his recipe for the vegetable soup, you know why: the man is a soup genius. Behold:
Dear Soup Lady,
Here is a recipe carried down for many generations. I know it as "Grandma Sophie's Chicken Soup". I'm sure her mother and generations before made the same. Each person took this recipe and tailored it to the food stuffs available at the time. I know Sophie never wasted ANY part of the chicken cause as I young child, once she had enough chicken fat in the freezer, she would deep fry it with onions and us kids would eat it like popcorn! Imagine why our cholesterol is so bad!
This is a simple recipe in that there are only a few necessary ingredients. In actuality, it can be made REALLY simple by dumping all ingredients into a large soup pot and simmering for a few hours, skim it, cut the chicken off the bones (it will fall off anyway) and serve. But my recipe is somewhat more involved and I find it to be the best "Jewish Penicillin" available.
Ingredients:
One large chickenwhole broiler or parts, or just breasts, or just dark meat, or just wings, whatever you have, but it is best to use a whole chicken. (Put aside the gizzards for other recipes if they pack innards inside the chicken where you by it).
4-6 stalks of celery- I use the inner parts but any parts are fine including the leaves
4-8 carrots depending on size and how sweet you want the soup. I like lots.
one large onion... type is not critical. If you have smaller ones, use more.
Fresh dill or if necessary, dried dill. This will be to taste. I like a good amount, some people prefer less.
If the chicken is kosher, it will have enough salt. If it isn't, DO NOT ADD SALT ANYWAY. You can always serve the soup with a salt shaker and let people add. Some people like to make noodles, dumplings, matzo balls, whatever. I like mine simple.
Process:
Large soup pot, enough to place the chicken in, cover it in water and still have 1/4-1/2 of the pot available.
High heat until boiling, cover, lower to simmer, and allow to simmer for an hour to 90 minutes (according to size of chicken).
After that, take out chicken, place in large bowl, and start removing skin, meat, etc. Place skin and all bones back into the stock and allow to simmer (low flame) for another hour. The meat can be cut into small pieces and placed in the fridge until later.
After an hour, turn off heat, place large soup pot in sink, use large strainer and strain from current pot into new pot. Place on stove top on low heat, allow to settle (about 10-15 minutes) and skim off fat from top using soup or whatever works for you.
Put in celery cut into half stalks, carrots, cut into thirds, whole onion(s) and raise heat to medium-low. Allow to cook covered for about 30-45 minutes. Remove onion(s) and squeeze out juices from onions into soup and discard the remainder of the onion (unless you have another use for it).
Now put in the chicken pieces that were set aside earlier and lower to low heat. Cover and simmer another 10 minutes. Put in the dill weed, cover, shut off heat and allow to sit for about 10-15 minutes before serving. This reheats as well as when it is fresh. It will gel in the fridge but instantly turns back to soup in the microwave or stovetop.
Enjoy! Best regards,
Howie
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