Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is a great way to make sure you make the most of a whole chicken.

 Making the chicken stock.

Ingredients

Stock
A whole chicken
A leek, washed and cut into chunks
2 carrots, scrubbed and cut into chunks
Half a bunch of parsley
Celery leaves from 4-6 ribs
15 peppercorns
4 bay leaves
4-6 sprigs of thyme
5 litres water

Soup
Meat from the cooked chicken carcass, shredded
The stock made from the ingredients above (about 4 litres)
2 carrots, scrubbed and cut into tiny dice
4 celery ribs, washed and cut into tiny dice
A leek, washed and cut into tiny dice
5 cm fresh ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
1 hot red chilli, finely sliced
4-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil or chicken fat
1 cup vermicelli
1.5 tsp salt

Method  

Stock

1. Remove the giblets from the chicken, cut off the wing tips and neck and remove the wishbone. Put all these bits in a large stockpot.
2. Remove the legs, breasts and wings from the carcass. They are not required for the soup so put them aside to make another dish.
3. Cut the carcass from vent to neck horizontally and cut the breast part across into two. Cut the spine part across into three.
4. Put all the ingredients in the large stockpot. It should be quite densely packed with chicken and vegetable flavour ingredients. Top up with water if necessary.
5. Bring to the boil, then simmer very gently for 4 hours. Stir once or twice during cooking.
6. Leave to sit off the heat for several hours with the lid on, then put in the refrigerator to cool completely (overnight).
7. Put a colander over a large bowl and lift out the larger pieces in the stock and place them in the colander, then pour all the stock through the colander.
8. Set the liquid stock aside for the soup and separate out the pieces of chicken from the colander.
9. Discard the cooked vegetables.
10. Pull the meat off the cooked chicken carcass and set aside for the soup.

Soup

1. Heat the oil in a large stockpot, then add carrots, celery, leek, ginger, chilli and garlic; sweat for 10 minutes on low heat with the lid on.
2. Add the chicken meat then the stock, bring to the boil.
3. Add the vermicelli and boil for 10 minutes.
4. Add salt.
5. Serves 10.

 Ingredients for chicken soup.

I bought the chicken at the market from my local poultry producer, who comes to the market in Preuilly on Thursdays and the market in Loches on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The veggies came from the organic market garden and orchard Les Jardins Vergers de la Petite Rabaudière on the outskirts of Preuilly. They come to the market on Thursday, and sell direct from the farm on Monday evenings. 

Diced vegetables being sweated.

Poultry and rabbit at the market in Preuilly sur Claise.

Organic vegetables sold direct from the farm.

 

Yum

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