Yesterday I cooked a whole broiler chicken. Today, of course, that meant soup! I am no expert on soup making, especially starting from a carcass, so I dragged out the Joy of Cooking - a book I have a love-hate relationship with. For some things it is really good, and for other things the recipes or advice are just plain terrible (specifically their chocolate chip cookie recipe).
Starting the stock
One of their key tips for soup says to use two bricks to distribute the heat evenly.
See? Bricks!
Okay. So I go get two bricks and arrange them thusly, as indicated.
Ooooh, the secret of the bricks
The first thing to note is that the bricks do even out the heat, and radiate a lot of it away. So plan on turning up the burner (which of course JoC does not mention) to get a simmering boil. By the end of the afternoon I had a house that smelled pretty good, as I had added leeks, mushrooms, ginger (my secret ingredient) and garlic. The onion skin was to add color.
Simmering away
As I neared the end, I added some more chicken bits, carrots, broccoli, herbs, salt, black pepper, chipotle pepper, and some rotini noodles. I just finished polishing off a bowl, and I'd rate it a B-. Meh. Maybe it will be better tomorrow?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Soup of the Day: Chicken Vegetable
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I normally make stock from carcass, plus vegetable matter I'd be throwing away: prunings of the dead branches from the rosemary, carrot peel, the ends of the onion and garlic bulbs, the nasty dry end of the celery stalk, parsnip tops. I just simmer it all together until I can pull out one of the long bones from the chicken and it'll disintegrate with moderate force (which means there's enough collagen in the stock to give it that nice mouthfeel). I also add MORE PEPPER! XD
ReplyDelete