Michael Haggert
Last week I made a big pot of soup, and
after a long, cold winter, it really hit the spot.
Who doesn’t need the warm embrace of a
hot bowl of homemade chicken soup right
about now?
If you read Food Matters on a regular
basis, you won’t be surprised that there
wasn’t any can opener involved in the
making of my soup. Since I was making
lunch for a large group (about 40 people) I
ended up with 18 quarts of soup.
But you don’t need forty people coming
for lunch to make an afternoon’s effort
worthwhile. The best homemade soups can
be can be split into meal-sized portions. For
about a dollar a quart, you can fill your
freezer with better stuff than comes from
any can.
Gather the following ingredients:
u 2 chickens (2 to 3 lbs each)
u 1 celery stalk
u 3 lbs carrots
u 3 lbs potatoes
u 1 medium onion
u 1 tblsp each of pepper, salt & rosemary
u 2 bags of extra fine egg noodles
Rub the outside of the chickens with
the seasonings, and roast, uncovered, in a
350F oven for about an hour, just until
golden. Drain any liquid from the roasting
pan into a large stock pot. Once the chickens
are cool enough to handle, pick all the meat
off the carcasses as best you can.
Set the meat aside and put the bones
and skin into the stock pot. Add 6 quarts of
water to generously cover, and turn the heat
up to medium high. Cover the pot.
Need to convert
pounds to grams,
or quarts to litres?
It’s easy with
online conversion
tools.
Convert just about
anything to
anything else at
convert-me.com
Just click here to
try it out!
While the stock is coming to a boil, cut
the root end off the celery and peel the
onion. Add the root end and the onion peel
to the stock.
Peel the carrots and dice finely, into
about 1/8 inch cubes. Dice the onion and
celery and peeled potato to the same size.
This part isn’t quick; depending on your
knife skills, your stock should have been at a
rolling boil, for about 20 minutes by the
time you’re ready to proceed.
Strain the stock through a good
colander and return the clear, flavourful
broth to the pot. Throw away the bones and
such, and add the the vegetables to the pot.
Add another 8 quarts of water to the pot
and bring to a simmer, until the vegetables
are soft. Cut up the cooked chicken meat
from earlier and add to the soup once the
carrots are tender. If you are adding
noodles, add them for just the last ten
minutes of cooking.
When the soup is ready, you can
proceed to feed a small army, or cool and
divide into freezer-safe packages to keep for
weeks, until the next Arctic blast or head
cold requires it.
You may imagine that an afternoon
spent making soup is a lot of effort when
you could just open a can and have soup in
minutes. But I urge you to try making
homemade chicken soup at least once.
Connecting with your food and spending
time in the kitchen does more for your soul
than any book can do. And surely that
matters just as much as the food matters.
Tell us on Facebook about your adventures with food this month,
or tweet us @thehubWE #foodmatters
March 2015 - The HUB 7