Two points to make about a delicious soup that we ate for days nursing a cold: 1) it marked one of my rare attempts to cook something without a recipe; 2) it was the fruit of my alternatives to WF campaign.
It's surprisingly hard to find a recipe for this classic -- not even Joy of Cooking has one. Also, I wanted to make it on the basis of the chicken stock I cooked according to Sara Jenkins' recipe, so I wasn't making soup from scratch. I made the stock from a "soup chicken" from Mick's Chicks at the Sheridan School farmer's market, plus an extra carcass he sells for stock and the usual aromatics, simmered for 4 hours and strained. Most of it I froze into ice cubes and stored in the freezer but I used some of it for what was essentially a deconstructed chicken soup.
The stewing chicken was useless after 4 hours so I bought 2 of the humongous skinless boneless breasts from Broad Branch and poached them in water with sauteed mirepoix. I shredded the cooked chicken into some of the stock and added the poaching liquid and mirepoix. I also added back some of the fat I'd skimmed off the top of the stock after it cooled. I boiled the Mueller's dumpling noodles separately, then added chicken and noodles and poaching liquid until I had the right balance in the soup, and stirred in some chopped parsley. It had, needless to say, a wonderful chicken flavor. I kept it going through the week by adding more of the chicken or noodles as needed.
So, yes, how hard can it be to cook this without a recipe. I feel like I left something out (cloves? bay leaf?) to round out the flavor, so will pay more attention the next time I do have a soup recipe. None of the ingredients came from WF.
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