Recipe

Chicken soup with rice

Recipe

For those of you who remember my mother’s soup, this recipe will be different in a few ways, in that my mother always used a capon, and she koshered her chickens. The koshering process involves the birds being soaked to clean them from old blood, and salting them, which in effect is a little like a quick brine. You can find recipes for koshering chickens online though I don’t do that, rather I salt my soup to taste at the end. Regarding capons, they are available from certain farms, and sold through D'Artagnan. The birds are plump, fatty and delicious. Capons are castrated roosters and I will leave it to you if that is something you want to buy. These days capons are pricey. Using a regular, good quality chicken will result in a more delicate broth. You may add chicken feet, or backs and necks to your soup for extra gelatin and richness. Unlike what some people call bone broth, soup shouldn’t cook too long as you will want the sweet flavor of the meat to remain. In my family we added a lot of vegetables, especially parsley, but feel free to experiment, no amount of vegetables is right or wrong. If you are home with little in your fridge right now not to worry, use whatever you have. We called the vegetables “greens” and we practically fought over them, the soggy parsley and dill was drenched in delicious chicken flavor. You can skim the fat from the top of the soup and save it to use (schmaltz) for cooking. Serve the soup with rice, noodles or matzoh balls.

1 Whole chicken or 3-4 pounds of boney chicken parts

3 Carrots, peeled and cut into 1” chunks

1-2 Bunches flat leaf parsley

1 Bunch dill

3 Ribs celery, cut into 1” chunks

1 Onion cut in half

6 Cloves garlic peeled and whole

1 Parsnip, peeled and cut into chunks, optional (my mother also used parsley root, which looks like a parsnip but is less easy to find these days)

1 Turnip, peeled and cut into chunks, optional

1 Leek, cleaned and cut into chunks, optional

Instead of soaking the chicken to clean it, place the chicken in a pot of cold water to cover. Bring to a boil and drain off that water, rinse the chicken and place it back in the pot.

Place all the ingredients including the chicken into the soup pot. Cover with water. Bring to a boil, lower the flame and simmer for about 1 hour. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Set aside or drain and refrigerate for the next day. I like to serve the vegetables from the soup and the chicken in the soup, but you can serve it on the side.