CHICKEN SOUP

CHICKEN SOUP* - In a large pot place 1 ea. 3 1/2-4# chicken, cut-up into 8-10 PCS. Cover chicken pieces with water. Add 1 small onion cut in half, unpeeled, 2 celery ribs cut in eighths, 2 carrots cut in eighths, about 20 whole peppercorns, 4-6 bay leaves, 4-5 sprigs of fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dry thyme). Bring the water to a boil and then love lower the heat and simmer for 3-4 hours. Remove the chicken pieces after 1/2 the simmer time. Cool and remove the meat from the bones. Return the bones to the stock to continue simmering. 


After the stock has simmered for 4 hours, remove from the heat and strain through cheesecloth or dish towel.


Dice carrots, onion, celery and potatos, as many as you want and cook in stock at slow boil until tender. Return chicken meat which you have chopped to the soup. Heat through and serve. Salt and pepper to taste.



 I'm making chicken soup tonight, and thinking about my dad. He was born in 1939, so would have been 72 in twelve days. I'm really lucky that I got him to write down some of his recipes before he had a stroke in March of 2008, so I have them in his handwriting. I'm also lucky to have had him to teach me a love of food.

He might have considered himself somewhat unsuccessful in that regard considering the long list of foods which I will not eat. When I was twenty or so, I finally decided to stop eating chicken tetrazzini and fish because I didn't really like it. Once a year or so after that, I would have to remind him about the tetrazzini. Not the fish. He never really stopped trying to get me and my sibs to eat different things.

Though he wrote many of his recipes down, he didn't follow them to the letter, which pissed off my mom mightily and she let him know it. She said they never tasted the same twice in a row. He would call her a "mouthy broad," and she would reply, "Shove it, Crowe." She would have been 71 in October.


*In caps not because I'm shouting, but because that's how my dad wrote it.