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This is not a blog about Chicken Soup For the soul. This is about Chicken soup OF the soul. Chicken soup is so simple a thing and yet it is so unique to each and every person. Sometimes I wonder if our soup reflects something of what we are.Ingredients:
Water 80% - 90%
Chicken 9.5%-19%
Salt. 0.5%-1%
There you have it, the essential recipe in decreasing order of importance and quantity. That is all you need to make this simple meal. Combine all ingredients to taste in these percentages, more or less. add whatever you think tastes good. it's whatever you like really.
Some people ive by TSP and cup, or ounces or grams, I live by ratios. Ask me sometime how I make stir fry (2/3 mixed veggies, 1/3 meat, sauce = 1/3 soy sauce, 1/3 sake, 1/6 white karo syrup, 1/12 anchovy sauce, 1/12 extras (chili paste, water, cornstarch, sugar, garlic/onion, ginger, white pepper, black pepper, 5-spice powder, usually) At least I think those are about right. I never measure anymore, I just look and taste.
But chicken soup is something else. My friend and I were sitting around sipping an Australian Riesling/Traminer blend that tasted so much of honeysuckle and grapefruit that it was like sunshine in a bottle (that cost $3.99 on the clearance rack) and waiting on the crockpot to finish it's excruciatingly slow magic upon the chicken. that is the nature of the crockpot though. YOu put things in it and wait for hours until what comes through the other side of that wait is food so deliciously blended in flavor that it warms you up and takes you back to all of those good times in your life.
At one point, she and I talked about the making of soup. My friend grew up raising chickens, so she understood the vital deliciousness of getting a chicken with the feet still attached, about how good a soup could be sipped in the evening when the meat you shoved into your mouth had been running around the barnyard that morning. She misses those days. Commercial meat is never quite the same.
She has a great palate for all things avian, so I consider her to be a great judge of soups. but her soups are different from mine, They are also different from another friend's soup. She has to keep hers gluten-free, but it's no less tasty. It's just different. My mom made a very salty chicken soup, and a very bland beef soup. My grandma makes hers low sodium but the spices she uses makes up for the lack of salinity. I experiment with my soups while I am more reserved with other foods. Mine are never the same twice. Some people use the same ingredients the same way for years. I have a theory that chicken soup is one of those things that is soul food, not just because its comforting, but because the creation of it is an expression of one's own soul.
So that recipe up there is kind of like a template for standard dead soup. There is no love there, there is no comfort or warmth. What makes a soup fabulous is the additions to it; that is how you treat it, what spices, vegetables, and starches you add.
spices are the first key to making this unique and great. No two people's soups will be exactly alike. Some people pour spices all at once and hope for the best. some people put them onto spice balls and drop them in. Some layer spices. .
The most commonly used spices are really famous in the son "Greensleeves" If you have lived under a rock since the 60's let me review : Parsley, sage,rosemary, thyme. Also commonly used (not necessarily all together) are Californian bay leaf, Mediterranean bay leaf, garlic, white pepper, black pepper, celery seed, basil, clove, anise, Hungarian paprika, Spanish paprika, oregano, dried onion. Since I am an eclectic when it comes to my soup, I have also used to some success in various experiments: black, green or oolong tea, crushed red pepper, cilantro, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cassia, nutmeg, turmeric, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, shiitake mushrooms, kombu seaweed, wakame seaweed, red or white miso, baking chocolate, sun dried tomato. mint, chamomile, , yerba mate, safflower, horseradish, lemon, lime, coconut, white wine (Riesling or muscat is the best for this), anchovy sauce, bonito stock, soy sauce, rice vinegar, thai chili paste, lemongrass, yogurt, cream, soy milk,
Is it starting to look like I empty the contents of a spice shop into my soup? yeah, sure. I admit, I experiment
