Saturday, February 4, 2012

My Mothers Secret Chicken Soup With Rice

Chicken Soup With Rice (or Pasta)

So this recipe is from making soup with my mom when I was a kid. It's still my favorite soup. The only change I made to this recipe is I don't use bullion anymore because it has partially hydrogenated oil in it and I use orzo instead of rice. I found out recently that I have an intolerance, but I used to eat this with rice all the time and orzo is a pretty good substitute. Because this recipe does not use chicken broth or chicken bullion, you will need to have the skin on and add more salt than normal. At the bottom of this recipe is a list of soup fixes cause with soup, sometimes the broth can be a little fickle, and with those fixes you can make the broth taste exactly how you want it to.

INGREDIENTS
Chicken                       1 Whole or 2 quarters
Carrots                        4-6 large
Celery                         1 stock
Onion                          2 Big
Garlic                          6-10 cloves to taste
Sea Salt                       2-3 tbs or to taste
Ground Pepper            1 tsp
Turmeric                      1 dash
Basil                            3 dashes
Bay Leaf                     2
Mustard Powder         3 dashes

DIRECTIONS
  1. Have rice or pasta cooked separately.In my opinion, you shouldn't keep your starch with the soup as it is cooked because it then makes the soup starchy.
  2. In one giant pot, put all spices, chopped veggies, and chicken in.
  3. Add water till all ingredients are just covered.
  4. Let boil for 30-40 min.
  5. Take out chicken and de-skin it and pull meat off the bone in strips or bits. (the meat should be falling off the bone and done)
  6. Put strips of chicken back in the soup. Add 4-6 cups more water. Keep at a boil till veggies are soft.
  7. Serve over a half cup of rice or pasta in a bowl and enjoy.
  8. You can refrigerate it for a few days and if preferred you can skim the fat off the top after it's been cooled down to make it less fatty. (although they say chicken fat is quite healthy for you) 

Soup fixes:

If the broth is too sweet, add more garlic and salt.
If the broth has too much garlic, add more water and salt.
If the broth is too salty, add more water and possibly garlic.
If the broth doesn't have as much flavor as expected, add more salt.

Hope you like this soup as much as I do. Many friends have tried it and I have always gotten rave reviews.