Chicken soup

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Chicken Soup is, of course, the star of the Jewish cooking list- it has essential admit, wider crossover appeal than chopped liver and gefilte fish ball- so it made sense to turn ti the Ashkenazi public for my first recipe. Claudia Roden’s masterful analysis of Jewish food comes up with the goods, as well a brief, but stimulating gobbet of history on the golden broth, so called because of the amber bubbles of fat floating on top. These days, she adds, almost unhappily, these are often skimmed off as unhealthy, and the color accentuated with a pinch of saffron instead.

Conventionally, according to Roden, this wedding- party and Shabbat favorite is made with a roasting fowl, although, she admits, many people now use chicken carcasses, giblets and chicken stock dices instead. I find myself with a dilemma; the only boiling fowl I can find down at the local market are of suspicious origin, which makes me less than excited about cooking them. I choose instead to go for an organic bird, at about three times the price, and hope the additional investment will pay dividends in the flavor department.

The soup is essentially a chicken stock – simmered with onion, carrot, leek, turnip, celery, parsley and white pepper for 2 ½ hours, while the bird itself is stripped of meat after an hour, so it doesn’t overcook, and the carcass alone returned to the pan for the remaining cooking time. The broth is then strained – not much fat on this fowl – and seasoned. It’s lovely; very wholesome tasting, surely and the bird have done the business in the meat flavor stakes but, it’s uncompromisingly plain.     

Ingredients

• 3 (5-pound) roasting chickens
• 3 big yellow onions, unpeeled and quartered
• 6 carrots, unpeeled and halved
• 4 stalks celery with leaves, cut into thirds
• 4 parsnips, unpeeled and slight in half (optional)
• 20 sprigs fresh parsley
• 15 sprigs fresh thyme
• 20 sprigs fresh dill
• 1 head garlic, unpeeled and cut in half crosswise
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

To serve:

• 4 cups 1/4-inch-diced carrots
• 4 cups 1/4-inch-diced celery
• 1/4 cup minced fresh dill
• 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

How to make Chicken Soup

Place the chickens, onions, carrots, celery, parsnips, parsley, thyme, dill, garlic, and seasonings in a 18- 20-quart stockpot. Add 7 quarts of water and take to a boil. Simmer, open, for 1 hour. Remove 2 of the chickens and allow cooling a little. Remove the breast meat from both chickens and set separately. Return the remaining chicken and carcasses to the pot and continue simmering, open, for 3 more hours. Strain the whole contents of the pot through a colander and chill. Remove the surface fat, then heat up the stock as follows, or pack in containers and freeze.

To serve the soup, return the stock to the pot and heat up, adding the cut up carrots, celery, dill, and parsley. Shred the reserved chicken breast meat into big pieces and add to the stock. Simmer over low heat for 6 minutes to cook the vegetables and reheat the chicken.