A Timeless Classic – Chicken Soup

There won’t be a dinner table in any Jewish home come Monday that doesn’t include that iconic Jewish food…chicken soup.  Or to be more specific, Matzo Ball Soup, which is really just chicken soup with matzo balls.
My grandchildren, all of them, LOVE chicken soup whether it is served with noodles or alphabet pasta or with matzo balls.  Of course for Passover, which begins Monday night at sundown, it is customary to serve matzo balls in chicken soup.  But no matter how you serve it the key to good soup is having good stock.

Traditionally I have always made my stock by boiling cut up pieces of chicken in water with carrots and onion and celery and some garlic…that is the way most recipes will tell you to make it.  But quite randomly I have found another way that I think is even tastier and has a better “chicken”  flavor.

After roasting a chicken I removed the meat from the carcass and decided, late one evening, to use the bones to make some stock that I could use for making soup for my grandchildren.  I put the bones from the roasted chicken in a pot, covered them with water and added about 1 tablespoon of salt and started simmering the water.  It was late…very late and I was tired and knowing that my grandchildren don’t like to see anything in their chicken soup except chicken and noodles or matzo balls, I just left out all the other things ( carrots, onion, celery, garlic, parsley) that I have normally added.  I was being lazy actually and thinking it would save me the step of straining out all the additions to have just plain broth and chicken for my littles ones.  I went off to bed leaving the pot on a very, very low flame to simmer overnight.

When I woke the following morning the house was filled with the delicious aroma of chicken broth…a very hearty and comforting smell.  Downstairs in the kitchen as I lifted the lid of the stock pot I remembered right away that I had omitted the veggies I usually add.  There also was very little chicken to speak of in the pot.  Only the little bits still clinging to the the bones from our roast chicken the night before.  So where was that delicious smell coming from?  The aroma was so good and  so strong I grabbed a spoon to take a taste.

To my amazement it was by far the best stock I had ever made, full of flavor and real “chickeny” goodness.  I have repeated this process now a few times making small changes to see what it was that made this chicken broth soooo good!

Here is my deduction. I think the combination of using roasted bones brought a level of flavor that simply boiling chicken pieces did not.  It is well known among experienced cooks that meat of any kind that is cooked (or more specifically roasted) on the bone has far more flavor than boneless cuts of meat have.  Meat roasted on the bone does not need the addition of lots of spice and seasoning, apart from some salt and maybe pepper, to taste rich and amazing.  Somehow the bones and naturally occurring fat, be it from marbling in beef or skin from chicken, add a depth of flavor that no amount of spices alone can create.

Secondly, adding adequate salt to the water seemed to help extract all that rich flavor from the roasted bones.  I was watching Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, the other day and she added what appeared to be a lot of salt to lamb she was preparing to roast.  She made a comment that stuck with me.  What she basically said was  “Cooks are afraid to tell people to use generous amounts of salt because salt has such bad press but the fact is you need adequate salt to create and extract great flavor. ”

I have tried making this stock adding the veggies from the beginning but I have found that for me the veggies are better added to the soup once the stock is made.  That way the base of the soup is just rich delicious chicken flavor.  Then whether you add carrots and celery, noodles or matzo balls, or just add the roasted chicken meat alone, you haven’t changed your delightfully delicious full flavored chicken broth into just a chicken flavored vegetable broth.

The roasted meat has a richer, more delicious flavor as well.  So if you are making a big pot of chicken soup try roasting the chicken first, or simply use the leftover meat from a roasted chicken you have purchased at the market.  Remove the meat, simmer the bones in a pot of water that just covers the bones and add salt.  Simmer for several hours and taste, adjusting the seasoning as necessary.

Chicken soup on any table in any home for any meal can only lead to love, joy and lots of abundant living AND eating 🙂