On 8/23/2014 11:17 PM, David E. Ross wrote:
> On 8/23/2014 6:57 PM, Pringles CheezUms wrote:
>> I make, well, my mother still makes, quite a decent chicken soup.
>> It's ...decent, but I'd like some tips to make it really great.
>>
>> Here's what she does:
>> Boil a chicken the afternoon before, let cool and set in the fridge to
>> congeal the fat.
>> Early next afternoon, remove the fat and debone the bird, and add
>> carrots, corn, potatoes, onions, a can of rotel tomatoes and enuf water
>> to cover. Simmer several hours, and serve at supper. (no salt added,
>> some of the family is salt sensitive, but its still tasty.)
>>
>> How can I punch this up to be even better?
>> What herbs/spices would go well here?
>> Are there some techniques that would liven it up? Would roasting the
>> chicken instead of boiling add anything? How bout roasting some of the
>> vegetables first?
>>
>> Help me make this a dish well worth inheriting.
>>
>
> My mother would try to get a roasting chicken instead of a fryer. A
> stewing chicken would even be better, but I don't think they are
> available anymore. If possible, she would also get some extra necks and
> backs. She would cut up the chicken into parts. She would also pull
> away and discard any visible fatty tissue.
>
> Mom would cut the following vegetables into chunks: celery with leaves,
> parsnip, carrot, garlic (not too much), onion (again, not too much) to
> cook with the chicken. She always added salt, not to taste but to draw
> the "goodness" out of the chicken.
>
> In a large pot, she would cook the chicken and vegetables with enough
> water to cover everything but not enough water for anything to float.
> This would be at a low boil long enough to turn the vegetables to mush
> and for the chicken meat to fall off the bones. While this boiled, a
> scum would form on top; Mom would remove the scum with a large spoon.
> She said leaving the scum would result in a cloudy soup.
>
> I followed this unwritten recipe with some additions. After the mush
> and falling-off-the-bone stage was reached, I strained the soup. After
> the solids cooled enough to handle, I brushed the vegetables off the
> meat as I pulled the meat off the bones.
>
> Since I really do not like to eat over-cooked vegetables - especially
> not liking biting into a chunk of vegetable -- I grated more carrot and
> celery (without leaves) and cooked them in the clear soup with the
> addition of the chicken meat. Yes, all the flavor is cooked out of the
> meat and vegetables; but the point is to make soup.
>
> Chilling the soup overnight, I easily scraped away a layer of fat. (I
> left a little bit of fat because it too has flavor). What was
> interesting is that the soup below the fat had jelled. Mom said that,
> if it did not jell, three things were wrong: It did not simmer long
> enough, there was not enough chicken bones, and there was not enough salt.
>

It was too late at night when I submitted the reply above, and I forgot
a few things.

After pulling the chicken meat from the bones, I diced the meat before
returning it to the soup.

My mother would add two things to her soup that I do not see in markets
anymore. She would buy about six chicken feet, scrape the outer scales
from the skin, and cook them in the soup. Having bough a whole stewing
chicken, Mom would find immature eggs inside it (mostly just yolk and
definitely no shell). She would carefully remove the eggs and cook them
in the soup a few minutes before serving it. To serve the soup right
away, Mom would wrap ice cubes in a clean dish towel to skim off much of
the fat.

--
David E. Ross

Visit "Cooking with David" at
<http://www.rossde.com/cooking/>