By Iron Chef Leftovers

A couple of friends of mine were feeling under the weather and I made them some chicken soup to assist in the healing process. I have fond memories from my youth of my dad making the soup from scratch in the winter – but it was an all day process. These days, there are plenty of times where Mrs. Iron Chef feels like soup for dinner and tells me later in the afternoon. I really am not a fan of canned soups – the veggies tend to be completely mush and they have entirely too much sodium in them, so fortunately, I devised a way to make it in roughly 20 – 30 minutes, depending on how soft you want your veggies. The soup is a heck of a lot better than the canned stuff, but not quite at the Jewish grandmother level, but it is much easier to make. The recipe below is really just a base, feel free to add in whatever veggies you want, or if you want to make veggie soup, just leave out the chicken and substitute veggie broth for chicken.

The Software
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 medium carrots diced into 1/4 inch pieces
2 ribs of celery (including the leaves) diced into 1/4 inch pieces
1/2 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 parsnip diced into 1/4 inch pieces
1 small head bok choy roughly chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
3 cloves of garlic (smashed but not diced)
2 bay leaves
1 supermarket rotisserie chicken
4 cups low sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 oz cognac (optional)
1 cup beef broth (optional)
The rind of a piece of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (optional – see final notes below)
Salt
Pepper

The Bird
Yes, just buy a supermarket rotisserie chicken. They are perfect for this soup and already cooked. Taking the bird apart is a hands-on experience (literally), so make sure the meat is cool enough to handle. It is an easy thing to do and doesn’t actually require a knife to do it, but you will get your hands messy. You are also only going to need the dark meat. It doesn’t matter if you only like white meat – get over it. The dark meat has infinitely more flavor and it won’t dry out. Save the breasts for chicken salad (my take on my grandmother’s recipe coming soon) or some other application where all of the flavor is being delivered by the sauce/dressing/seasonings. First, remove the skin from the entire bird. Please don’t throw it out – it is delicious and good for you (lots of vitamins and contrary to what you may think, fat does not make you fat). If you don’t want it, bring it over to my place, I will be happy to take it from you. Next, remove the wings, legs and thighs from the body and remove the meat from the bones (you can discard the bones) and set aside. Then remove the breast meat from the carcass. Set that off somewhere so you are not tempted to use it. Now the fun part – pick all of the remaining meat off the carcass. There is probably some fat left on there, which you can just get rid of, but work at getting everything else off. It doesn’t have to be completely stripped, just get all of the major chunks of meat off (especially off the back). There is a surprising amount of meat that people tend to leave on the carcass with roast birds – most of it very tasty. This exercise will show you just how much you are wasting. Take all of the dark meat, roughly chop it and set it aside. Save the body cavity – we need it for the soup.

The Soup
In a large stock pot or Dutch oven heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat until shimmering. Add the carrots, celery, parsnip and onions and cook until slightly softened but not browned, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the broth, garlic, bay leaves and chicken body cavity to the pot and bring to a boil. When a boil is reached, reduce heat to medium low and add soy, cognac, Parmigiano rind and bok choy. Simmer for 10 minutes or until the veggies reach your desired state of doneness. Remove from heat and remove the chicken carcass, garlic, rind and bay leaves. Add the chicken meat to the soup (it is already cooked, so you are just warming it up with the residual heat from the soup). Check the seasoning – add salt and pepper to taste.

Final Notes
This is wonderful served by itself or over some rice or small pasta like orzo. If you want a thinner broth, add water to the soup as necessary (just remember to recheck the seasoning if you do this). Cool any leftovers and portion them out. This recipe makes 6 – 8 meal sized servings of soup and you can easily extend it past that if you want to add more veggies/broth/water to it. You ask, why would I have the rind of Parmigiano Reggiano and add it to the soup? Simple – flavor. If you have Parmigiano at home, keep the rind in a zip top bag and put it in the freezer. If you don’t have it, go to the cheese counter of any store that carries it and ask them if you can have some of the rind. They will usually just give it to you. It makes a huge difference in the flavor of the soup.