DELISH MAGAZINE JANUARY 2020
MICHAEL CALLERI’S CHICKEN VEGETABLE SOUP
2 large chicken legs (thigh and drumstick
together)
2 dried bay leaves
1 tablespoon of Sicilian sea salt
8 celery ribs w/leaves
6 carrots
5 yukon gold potatoes
2 vine-ripened tomatoes
1 bunch of spinach
1 fennel bulb with stems and leafy fronds included
5 large shiitake mushrooms.
2 shallots, peeled and sliced into thin disks
2 whole peeled garlic cloves
A one-inch piece of ginger, peeled, sliced sliver-
thin.
5 cups of cold water
Peel the potatoes and carrots, and trim off the
top and tip of the carrots. Remove the outer part
of the fennel bulb and slice away the bottom.
Remove the top core of the tomatoes where the
stem would be attached. Remove the stems of the
shiitake mushrooms.
Wash and coarsely chop all of the above
vegetables.
ing method (four hours) and the usual
straining and deboning of the chicken
meat. Her salt level is always perfect.
There’s only a pinch of pepper.
When I have Jeanmarie’s soup, I
immediately think of sitting in our eat-in
kitchen when I was a kid. The aroma and
taste is exactly the same, as are the large
chunks of carrot, celery, and onion. It’s
as if my mother is guiding Jeanmarie’s
knife when she cuts the vegetables and
her large wooden spoon as she stirs the
broth in the pot. Whereas Michele’s
bowl of soup is thick with vegetables,
Jeanmarie’s is purer. Chunks of carrot,
some celery, slivers of onion sink into the
traditional macaroni.
My sister Lisa Carver, the youngster
daughter, makes soup that has smaller
cuts of vegetables. Her broth is the clear-
est, because she strains it three times
early-on. She uses an abundant amount
of orzo, which is the rice-shaped pasta
she prefers and is her favorite soup mac-
aroni. She uses a lot of it. The content of
her bowls look like porridge, or what’s
known as Congee – a type of chicken
soup thick with boiled rice and beloved
in China and southern India.
At Michele’s house on Christmas Day,
I talked to Colleen Sutorius, one of her
in-laws, who adds a tablespoon of the
famous Bell’s Seasoning, which comes
in a bright yellow cardboard box, in the
preparation of her chicken stock. I was
unfamiliar with the product and have
since learned that it’s a blend of rose-
mary, oregano, sage, ginger, marjoram,
thyme, and pepper. Colleen uses the tra-
ditional vegetables, but she roasts large
chunks of them for a bit and adds them
to the water to help make the stock.
Colleen’s daughter, Caitlin Sutorius,
also makes her own chicken soup. I was
surprised to hear that she finely dices her
vegetables and sautes them in a frying
pan on the stove-top before adding put-
ting them in the water. What she’s made
– with this fine dice of carrot, onion, and
celery – is the classic Italian soffritto, a
superb base for stock.
I once made soup using only chicken
feet, which I had purchased from the
mammoth Asia Food Market at 2055
Niagara Falls Boulevard in Amherst. The
flavor was revelatory. Fatty and delicious.
To a large soup pot, add the chicken and five
cups of water, which is brought to a boil.
Once it begins boiling, reduce the pot to a
simmer at low-to-medium heat and add the sea
salt and bay leaves. Cook for one hour with the lid
slightly askew. Skim occasionally as it simmers.
After one hour, the chicken is removed and set
aside. The bay leaves are discarded.
The broth is strained into a large bowl.
Then the broth is strained a second time back
into the soup pot.
The vegetables, all now coarsely chopped and
washed, are added to the broth along with the
garlic, shallot, and ginger.
The broth and vegetables are simmered at low-
to-medium heat for 2 hours with the lid slightly
askew. Stir occasionally. Don’t let it overboil.
As the soup cooks, the cooled chicken is
deboned.
At two hours, add the chicken meat to the pot.
Stir. Taste test for your saltiness preference. Add a
pinch or two of sea salt if desired.
Everything is then cooked for 15-minutes at
medium with the lid askew.
Serve in warm bowls.
I’ve also made Cock-a-leekie and
Congee.
Regarding the meat, if truly local is
your preferred choice, you’ll do well by
using a chicken, especially a roaster, cut
up or whole, from Wendel’s Poultry Farm
in East Concord, just outside Springville
in southern Erie County. There’s a store
on the grounds manned by friendly peo-
ple, and the farm has a good website. The
Lexington Food Co-op in Buffalo sells
Wendel chicken products at both of its
locations.
The mythology of chicken soup as a
panacea for what ails a person is fun to
think about. For me, of course, there’s
the warm memory of a treasured dish
from childhood.
Be it a healthy tonic or a youthful de-
light, there’s no denying that eating fla-
vorful chicken soup makes you feel good.
It’s called comfort food for a reason.
Michael Calleri writes about movies,
entertainment, and culture for the Niagara Gazette
and the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal. His
reviews are syndicated by the CNHI news network.
Contact him at [email protected].
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