Food Friday: Soup season

I mind that it was 83°F yesterday. The Halloween Snickers bars got a little gooey, but at least the trick-or- treating children didn’t have to wear snow jackets over their Halloween costumes. They were full of giggles and energy, and they sported vivid green hair dye jobs and homemade costumes as they tripped merrily along the sidewalks of our neighborhood, stockpiling their goodies. Halloween came and went, as per the calendar. Which means that today, November 1, should be cool and autumnal: sweater and soup season.

Yes, indeed.

So I am going to stop my belly-aching and make some soup. We have a drawerful of vegetables, and a chicken carcass and an agenda. We will eat dinner tonight, and the leftovers will make a fine weekend lunch. Waste not, want not. My favorite chicken soup will fill the air in the house with the aroma of home. It can cure almost anything, including Election Day jitters.

Words to the wise: you are going to need chicken soup sooner or later this winter. And, no, it will never taste as good as your mother’s, or your abuelita’s, or anything from some mythical Lower East Side Jewish deli, with containers of chicken schmaltz on all the tables. And that’s OK. You are making new memories, (and dinner) and it is your homemade creation. It will ward off the flu, and you will feel talented and virtuous for boiling up a huge stockpot of your own soup! Maurice Sendak will hover behind you, proudly, as you measure out the rice. And soon you will be sipping your own chicken soup with rice.

Homemade Chicken Stock
1 deboned chicken carcass, including skin OR 1 whole chicken (you could even cheat and buy a rotisserie chicken!)
6 quarts water
6 garlic cloves, smashed
2 carrots, roughly chopped
3 celery stalks, roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
4 black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
Salt (optional!)
1.Use a large stock pot, and add butter and chicken over medium heat. Brown them a little bit.
2.Add all the rest of the ingredients, and bring to a boil.
3.Boil for 3 minutes, then turn heat down to low.
4.Cover, and simmer for about 3-4 hours, stirring every once in a while.
5.Once it’s a golden color, strain and let cool. Put in the refrigerator overnight, then skim the fat off the top.

Or, if you are pressed for time, Chicken Soup (not completely homemade – but you feel a cold coming on)
Olive oil
Half an onion, minced
2 carrots, finely diced
Bay leaf
A sprig of fresh thyme, or a few shakes of dried
2 quarts chicken stock (or canned broth – this is for the few of us who tossed out the chicken carcass early, never thinking of the soup possibilities. Shamefully, I have done this many times.)
1 cup uncooked, long grain rice (or, if you are a noodle family, have your wicked way with them)
2 cups shredded, cooked chicken

1.Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a large, heavy-bottomed skillet.
2.Add onion and carrot, and sauté till soft, 5-7 minutes.
3.Add bay leaf, thyme, and chicken broth, and bring to a boil.
4.Reduce to a simmer and add rice and chicken.
5.Let soup bubble, stirring occasionally, till rice is cooked through, about 15-20 minutes.

This will be much better than Lipton’s Chicken Noodle dried-powder and freeze-dried chicken bits. And certainly better than Campbell’s. Have you ever seen those pinkish chicken nubbins in the bottom of a Campbell’s can? Ick!

Soup is the most versatile of foods. It reminds us of the security of our childhoods, it stretches to feed unexpected company, it is easy to make and is always well received. It smells of holidays past. Make a batch of turkey soup after Thanksgiving, and in a single sniff you can relive the whole meal – without having to iron the tablecloth or to watch a single moment of football.

Don’t take my word for it: Food52 has hot and cold soup recipes. You can be ready with soup, whatever the weather: Food52 Soups

Remember to vote on Tuesday!

“There is nothing like soup. It is by nature eccentric: no two are ever alike, unless of course you get your soup in a can.”
—Laurie Colwin