Chicken Soup

I love homemade soups. In fact, aside from desserts involving pumpkin, soup is kind of my culinary obsession right now. Making soup from scratch is much easier than people think and generally better for you – especially if you make your own stock – as you can control what goes into it (most importantly: the amount of salt). You just need the time…however, it’s a perfect way to make use of a lazy Sunday. Plus, your house will smell amazing.

I’m also a little obsessed with making my own stock. It’s so ridiculously simple and a great way to use up the parts of vegetables and meat that normally get thrown out. You can also make a whole bunch and freeze it, then just use it as you need it.

Today, I made chicken stock. I had roasted a chicken on the weekend and kept the bones and leftover meat in order to make a yummy chicken soup. My mom makes a mean turkey soup (usually after big family dinners) as a way to use up leftover meat and bones, and it’s one of my very favourite dishes she makes. It’s full of flavour and LOTS of dill.

What can I say? We’re Ukrainian.

Chicken Stock
I don’t really have a specific recipe for stock, as I kind of just like to throw in whatever I have, but here’s a basic guideline.

Ingredients:

bones/carcass of 1 roasted chicken, meat removed
2 unpeeled onions, coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks with leaves, coarsely chopped
2 unpeeled carrots, coarsely chopped
1 head of garlic (unpeeled), separated into cloves
6-8 sprigs of parsley
2 sprigs of thyme (or a tsp or so of dried thyme)
2 bay leaves
10-15 whole peppercorns

Directions:

In a stock pot, combine chicken, onions, celery, carrot, parsley, thyme, bay leaves and peppercorns. Pour in 14 cups of water; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, skimming occasionally, for about 3-4 hours.

Use a slotted spoon to discard the majority of the chicken & vegetables. Strain stock through cheesecloth-lined sieve (or just a regular old strainer) into large bowl, pressing remaining vegetables to extract liquid. Refrigerate until fat congeals on surface, about 8 hours. Lift off fat and discard. Use as needed.

The stock can also be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month.

Dillicious Ukrainian Chicken Soup
My spin on my mother's great soup.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons canola oil
half a medium onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 medium carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 quarts chicken stock
1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken
LOTS of fresh dill

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Cooked egg noodles (optional)

Directions:

Coat a soup pot with oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, carrots, celery and a tbsp or 2 of dill. Cook and stir for about 6 minutes, until the vegetables are softened but not browned. Pour in the chicken stock (and more dill) and bring the liquid to a boil. Add the chicken (and more dill) and simmer for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper (and any other spices you want – dill is nice).

Add noodles to serve (I don’t put the noodles to cook directly in the soup as they soak up a lot of the broth).

Enjoy!!


P.S. To accompany the soup, I also made these biscuits. They’re pretty much to die for. You should go make some. Now.