Homemade Chicken Soup and Chicken Broth

Good stock is the basis of good cooking. Homemade broths are not difficult to prepare and it is the easiest way to take everyday meals a notch above and give an authentic gourmet touch to the recipes for special occasions.

Why homemade instead of stock cubes or ready made broth? The answer is quality and flavor. You know what goes into the broth you prepare at home and being able to choose quality ingredients your broth will be more nourishing. Most of the brilliant gourmet cooking recipes would be nothing without a good stock base, and there is an abyss in flavor between commercial and homemade broth.

Find how to prepare a classic, nourishing chicken broth, how easy is to make a chicken noodle soup, and, so that you don’t need to repeat yourself, other three equally nourishing chicken broth based soup recipes.

Classic chicken broth recipe

This is the broth you will use most. Many recipes ask for chicken broth and it is also excellent to have on its own or in a simple soup.

Ingredients
5 lb fowl, cleaned, drawn, better cut in several pieces
2 large carrots, peeled and cut in thick chucks
2 onions, peeled and quartered
1 leek cut in 1” chunks
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 bouquet garni
6 peppercorns

Procedure

1. Put the chicken and vegetables in a large stock pot. Add water –about 8 pints- and take to the boil. Skim off foam, add herbs and a little salt and take again to the boil,
2. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 2-3 hours, until the meat falls off the bones, skimming foam off and adding hot water when required so the ingredients are always covered,
3. Cool, remove fat and strain broth; season to taste.

Tips

• If you are using this broth for a chicken noodle soup, the cooked chicken meat can be chopped and added to the soup; otherwise, use it in salads, chicken pie, or make it into a loaf.
• Use your favorite herbs instead of the whole bouquet garni. You could flavor just with only one or two of the herbs.

Chicken noodle soup recipe

This simple chicken noodle soup is a success each time, classic and always comforting, and a favorite with kids and adults. Nothing better to fight the winter colds.

Ingredients
4-5 cups classic chicken broth
1 cup (about 4 oz) thin noodles, broken into pieces if they are too long
1 cup cooked chicken meat, diced
1 carrot, grated
Salt
Pepper

Serves: 4-6

Procedure

1. Put the broth in a pan and take to the boil. Add noodles and shredded carrot; cook 12-15 minutes, until noodles are done.
2. Add the diced chicken, season to your taste, heat and serve.

Tip

There is nothing like homemade broth, but all of us are in a hurry sometimes… use ready made chicken stock, or prepare the broth from chicken stock cubes, if you must.

Chicken egg soup

Whisk the soup while adding the beaten egg. The egg will “shred” instead of coking whole.

Ingredients
4-5 cups classic chicken broth
3 eggs
Salt
Pepper

Servings: 4 to 5

Procedure

1. Put the classic chicken stock into a pan, cover and heat up. When it is close to the simmering point, break the egg into a bowl and beat them.
2. Pour the beaten egg as soon as the broth starts boiling whisking all the time. Season and serve straight away.

Tips

• Authentic Italian: Add 2 Tbs grated Parmesan cheese to the beaten egg and mix well before pouring it into the chicken broth.
• Fast food: When you are in a hurry, heat up 1 cup classic chicken broth in a pan or in the microwave; pour 1 beaten egg, stirring briskly, season and you are ready to eat. Even less effort if you use ready made chicken stock. You can prepare the broth from a chicken stock cube.

 
Chinese chicken soup with mushrooms

The best mushrooms are the Chinese dried ones found in most specialty shops or in the Asian section of your grocery store, but you can use other, including fresh mushrooms, if you don’t find them.

Ingredients
5 cups chicken broth
2 oz Chinese dried mushrooms, soaked, or 4 large mushroom heads, finely sliced
¾ cup cooked chicken breast, finely sliced
Salt
Pepper

Servings: 4-6

Procedure

Heat the chicken stock, sliced mushrooms and chicken breast in a saucepan until the stock starts boiling. Reduce heat and simmer very gently for 5-6 minutes. Season to taste and serve.

Tips

• Garnish with some watercress leaves.
• Fusion cooking: make the broth more interesting adding 4 Tbs dry sherry, a well known Spanish trick.

Castilian garlic soup

Despite its humble beginnings as poor man cooking, garlic soup has grown to represent Castilian cooking. Garlic soup is a dish that allows infinite variations to reflect the personal taste of every chef: You can enrich the basic soup with Serrano ham, chorizo or both, serve it with or without poached eggs, use the smoky gourmet paprika or the plain sweet one. A simple soup that is forever different.

Ingredients
8 Tbs olive oil or enough to cover the bottom of the saucepan
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 lb lightly stale bread, sliced
½ tsp paprika
3½ cups chicken broth
4 eggs
salt

Servings: 4

Procedure

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until it starts taking color but not fully brown, 3-4 minutes. Add the bread and cook 3-4 minutes more, stirring to coat the bread in oil.
2. Remove the pan from the heat to sprinkle paprika over the bread and toss to coat evenly. Return to the heat, add the stock, heat up until it simmers; cook for 5-10 minutes, until the bread is swollen but still whole.
3. Season the soup and ladle to four individual earthenware bowls, break an egg on each of them and bake in a very hot oven for 5 minutes. The egg white should be thick and opaque, the yolk still liquid and the soup thick and nicely toasted.

Tips

• Though baking the eggs is traditional but more modern cooks have other ways around. The eggs can be poached directly into the soup, with no oven time; just crack each one and add it to the soup and keep the heat on until the eggs are poached to your taste. The eggs could be poached in advance and added to the soup the last minute to warm. Serve in warmed bowls. Or you could do a quick poaching by ladling the hot soup into an individual bowl, breaking an egg into it and microwaving for 1¼ minutes.
• If you don’t have the traditional earthenware pans Spanish are so fond of, you could use heat resistant ceramic bowls, crocks or soup bowl size ramekins.
• If you like the taste but don’t relish finding garlic bits in your soup, fry the garlic until it has taken a little more color and remove it. Add the bread and follow the recipe at that point.
• You can enrich the soup with Serrano ham. Add 4 oz Serrano ham, finely diced, at the same time you add the garlic. If you don’t have it, prosciutto is a good substitution.
• Chorizo, the paprika red Spanish sausage, becomes another way to enrich your soup. Fry 4 oz chorizo, peeled and finely sliced with the garlic. Because chorizo already adds paprika, you need to add less of it afterwards.
• You could add both, Serrano ham and chorizo.
• Once ready, top it with your favorite cheese and melt it under the grill.
• This Castilian garlic soup makes a comforting and nourishing lunch or light meal on a budget; double economy because this recipe can be prepared with leftover bread.
• If you don't have chicken broth to use as a base, it comes out very good using veal or beef stock as a base. If you crave the flavor and don't have any broth, just use water; you'll miss some minerals from the broth, but considering garlic, oil bread and egg, you are still getting plenty.