Yankee Cook’s Chicken Soup

Somehow, whenever I’m feeling under the weather, no matter how tired I may feel, I find myself in the kitchen making this soup. Partly because for me, cooking is a relaxing activity and I hardly notice the effort, but also because I see chicken soup as a valid cold remedy. Honey doesn’t hold a candle to schmaltz in soothing a sore throat.

The thing with using chicken soup as a cold remedy is that not just any chicken soup will do. Opening up a can of chicken soup isn’t going to cut it. It has to be homemade. Simmering fresh vegetables and chicken into a stock creates a deep steep of flavors, fat and chicken essence that will clear the head better than any over the counter decongestant. Boneless, skinless chicken breast isn’t going to cut it either, because the end result misses the beneficial extracts from the chicken’s skin and bones.

I like to use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs to get the benefits of simmered chicken bones, but ease of removal once the stock is complete. I also like to utilize larger, tougher vegetables for the stock and save the smaller, sweeter ones for the soup. The thinner carrots and inner ribs of celery are much sweeter, more tender and make for a better texture in soup. A quick ten minute simmer once the soup is assembled, rapidly braises the vegetables without cooking all of the vitamins away.

Noodles add texture and act as a vehicle for all of the goodness, and along with hearty morsels of chicken and sweet vegetables, you have a what may be the closest thing to a cure for the common cold. Up next, Yankee Cook creates a recipe for world peace…

Chicken Soup -Makes 8 – 10 servings

2 lb bone-in, skin-on chicken thigh
4 celery ribs – two tougher outer ribs and two soft inner ribs
1 celery heart (the inside of the celery bunch, leaves and all)
4 carrots – 1 large and 2 thin carrots
2.5 quarts water
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
6 sprigs of parsley
1 t sea salt
2 cups fine egg noodles

Begin by making the stock. Loosely chop the two outer celery ribs and the large carrot. Rinse the chicken if desired and place in a large stockpot. Add celery, carrots, three sprigs parsley, salt and water.

Cover and bring to a simmer. Lower heat and adjust the lid so that steam can escape. Simmer for 1. 5 hours.

While the stock simmers, prepare the vegetables for the soup. Peel the two thinner carrots, split lengthwise and cut into 1 inch strips. Split the celery ribs and also cut into 1 inch strips. Remove leaves from the last 3 sprigs of parsley and finely chop.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the thighs from the water to a cutting board to cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile uncover the stock and simmer on medium for an additional 15 minutes. Remove vegetables and discard. Season to taste. Allow to rest off heat for about 5 – 10 minutes to allow the excess fat to rise to the top.

Remove the skin from the cooled chicken thighs and discard. Harvest all meat and loosely chop.

Using a ladle or spoon, remove any excess fat from the top of the stock. Raise heat to medium. Add chicken, noodles and vegetables. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.

Serve hot and feel better.

Ingredient origins: Organic Chicken – unknown; Organic celery – unknown; Organic carrots – California; Onion – unknown; Parsley – Massachusetts; Sea salt – Maine; Egg noodles – Missouri

French Onion Soup

French onion soup can be either really great or really not so great and it all depends on the quality of ingredients. Imagine how hollow it could be if the stock was made from a bullion cube, the bread was a slice of HFCS laden supermarket “French bread” and the whole thing was topped with a waxy, mass-produced domestic “Swiss” cheese (I’m going to sound like a total cheese snob here, but there are hundreds of different types of cheese that come from Switzerland. There is not just one “Swiss Cheese”. There. I said it.), rather than an authentic Gruyere? The soup would be thin and over-salted, the bread would turn to an algae-like substance and the cheese would form a tough skin when broiled, rather than melting and mingling.

Fortunately, it’s not prohibitively expensive or difficult to find quality ingredients for French Onion soup, and it makes a world of difference in the end result.

This recipe calls for homemade beef stock, a good baguette with a thick crisp crust and open crumb, and a good authentic Gruyere cheese. If you live in an area with good artisan cheese makers, you may be able to find an local equivalent to Gruyere, but be sure to test it out first to see if it works. Sometimes cheeses can become stringy when added to soup and that makes for a less appetizing appearance and texture.

To get a light essence of garlic into the soup, burnish the bowl and toast with a halved piece of garlic. This combined with dry white wine, good cheese and French bread makes this soup reminiscent of a good fondue.

French Onion Soup – Serves 2

3 yellow onions, quartered and sliced
2 T butter
1 dash of salt (or 3 grinds from salt grinder)
1 t brown sugar
1 T flour
1/2 C dry white wine
4 C beef stock
2 – 4 thick (1/2 – 1 inch) slices of French bread
1 clove of garlic, peeled and cut in half
4-6 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated

Melt butter in a large stockpot. Add onions and cook over medium-low heat until creamy and softened, about 10 minutes. Add brown sugar and continue cooking until golden brown, 20 more minutes on medium-low. Stir in flour, being sure to evenly coat the onions and cook 10 minutes, still on medium-low heat.

Increase heat to medium-high and add wine. Stir to blend the wine with the onion and flour paste, scraping up the bottom of the pan to deglaze. Stir in beef stock and allow to simmer for 30 minutes. Occasionally skim any foam from the top and stir.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toast the pieces of bread – depending on the thickness of the baguette, you may need two toasts per bowl. Rub the toasts and oven-proof soup crocks with raw garlic.

Divide the finished soup into two crocks, float toast on top and cover with grated Gruyere. Place soup crocks in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until cheese reaches desired level of meltiness. This could range from just bubbling to browned.

Slow Cooked Beef Stock

It is raining, cold and windy here today. There are whitecaps out on the water and raindrops on the windows. It’s the perfect weather for making a nice soup. Homemade stock makes all the difference with soup. Sure, it’s easy to open up a carton of beef or chicken stock, but it’s just as easy to make a good stock at home, it just takes a little while longer.

A few simple ingredients arranged in the slow cooker, covered with water, and voila! 12 hours later, you have a rich, flavorful stock and a house filled with the aroma of homemade soup. What’s great about using the slow cooker for stock is that you don’t have to keep an eye on it or worry about it boiling over. Even set to high, the water content of the stock keeps it just under a simmer. Marrow lends sweet undertones to the stock and the veggies keep the beat.

Note: After a chat with our friendly butcher, I learned that marrow is sadly under appreciated these days and because it is, it’s always a good idea to ask the butcher for a fresh cut of marrow or soup bone if you’re buying it in a supermarket, because (horrors!) due to low demand, they often don’t replace the bones that are out in the refrigerator case and they could be a few days old.

Slow Cooker Beef Stock – Makes 4 cups

1.5 lb beef marrow bone
1 large potato, peeled
2 carrots
1 onion
1 celery
3 sprigs parsley
2 quarts water

Loosely chop vegetables and arrange the bones, vegetables, parsley and peppercorns in slow cooker.

Cover with 2 quarts water and cook on high for 12 hours.

Using a slotted spoon, remove bones and large vegetables from stock to prevent splatters. Pour the rest through a mesh strainer and into a stockpot or heat proof bowl (or whatever… it’s your kitchen). Discard bones and vegetables.

Allow the stock to cool in the refrigerator for at least one hour. Remove solidified fat with a slotted spoon.

Use the stock to make a tasty homemade soup, sauce or gravy.

Ingredient origins: Beef marrow bone – unknown; Organic potato – Maine; Organic Carrots – unknown; Organic onion – Washington; Organic celery – unknown; Organic parsley – Massachusetts; Peppercorns – India. As you can probably guess, a lot of these ingredients were purchased at a conventional supermarket, which is an unfortunate fact of life in winter in New England. Sometimes the best we can do is purchase as thoughtfully as possible, given the circumstances, so in this case I tried to keep to organic produce. Oftentimes though, even if an item is raised organically, the location of origin is not disclosed because the distributor buys from many different suppliers. I think it may be time though to consider signing up for a meat share

Greek Style Cod Soup

This week’s Community Supported Fishery catch was cod. We currently have a freezer full of fish cakes and we’ve roasted quite a few fish whole since signing up for the CSF. So I decided to set Wayback Machine to 2006 and go over to my trusty recipe box for ideas. I had worked on this recipe for a while before settling on the right proportion of ingredients.

As you know, soups and stews are great in cold weather. While the traditional players this time of year can be rich and heavy, Greek Style Cod Soup is light, nutritious and satisfying. Seasoned simply with salt, pepper and parsley, the flavor of the fish is allowed to stand on it own.

Greek Style Cod Soup – serves 4- 6

2 quarts water
1 t sea salt
1/2 C olive oil
1/2 C freshly chopped parsley
2 carrots, chopped
2 tomatoes, diced, or 1 1/2 C cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
3/4 C white rice
3 lb cod fillets, cut into large 3 – 5″ pieces
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Bring water to a boil in a large stockpot. Add vegetables, rice, oil and half of the parsley. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer, covered for 10 minutes.

Add cod, cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes. It’s important to check on it occasionally be sure the simmer does not become a rapid boil or the fish could fall apart.

Remove from heat, season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve garnished with the remaining parsley.

Ingredient origins: Sea salt – Maine; Olive oil – Italy; Organic parsley – Rhode Island; Organic carrots – California; Tomatoes – Mexico; Onion – California; Potato – unknown; Rice – California; Cod – Atlanic Ocean right outside our door.

Sausage and Kale Soup

It’s been a relatively warm autumn here and our neighbor’s garden is still producing kale. She had kindly brought some by a few months ago and I made this lovely soup out of some Italian sausage we had in the freezer and some rice and lentils we had on hand. I wasn’t expecting much, but the soup turned out to have that rare combination of being hearty and light at the same time.

Our neighbor mentioned the other day that the kale is still going strong, and so she invited us over to grab some more before the first frost. It’s a good thing too, because it snowed the following day. I decided this time to perfect the recipe and use some of my homemade stock and some fresh sausage from a local farm. The result is a rich and flavorful soup that’s not too heavy. I know this one was a winner because my husband had seconds.

Sausage and Kale Soup – serves 6 – 8

1/2 C long grain white converted rice
1/2 C dry red lentils
1 C water
6 Italian sausages
1 bunch (15-20 leaves) of kale, spines removed and chopped into 1 -2 inch squares
8 C vegetable stock or
Salt to taste

Remove sausage from the casings and form pieces about 1 inch in size. Brown in a skillet over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Drain fat and set aside.

In a large stockpot combine vegetable stock, kale and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly simmer rice and lentils in water, covered for 10 minutes until not quite cooked through.

Combine all ingredients in the large stockpot with the kale. Season to taste.

Simmer for an additional 5 – 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Ingredient origins: Organic kale – neighbor’s garden, Converted rice – Texas, Organic lentils – California, Italian sausage – Maine, vegetable stock – my own kitchen from water and vegetables trimmings of mostly local organic veggies.