Chicken and Vegetable Soup Steve's
Chicken and Vegetable Soup
Steve Lister
This is a hearty soup that can be a meal in itself, served with fresh bread. It is especially good for the cold winter evenings.
Easily serves 10 .
Ingredients
1 medium sized chicken
4 onions finely sliced
1500 gm. potatoes, peeled and chopped
600 gm. carrots, peeled and chopped
400 gm. celery chopped (about 4-6 sticks)
200 gm. green pepper (1 large pepper), finely diced
200 gm. small cabbage/green leaves (1 small)
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. black pepper
3 vegetable stockpots (cubes)
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
4 pints hot water
1 pint of chicken stock (that you make from carcass)
Instructions
Chicken and Stock
Roast the chicken as normal, get plenty of colour on it for more taste.
Slice off and keep the breasts and legs whole and use them for another meal.
Strip all the meat off the remaining carcass. Keep aside.
Take all the bones, skin and bits and place in a pan, in about 1 1/2 pints (750ml.) of water, bring to boil then simmer for a good hour or so. Or cook in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes.
Strain/Sieve the liquid into a bowl and leave to separate. Allow to cool, perhaps in the fridge overnight.
Remove the fat off the top of the liquid (which should be like a jelly by now) and put to one side for use in next part of recipe (it can also be used to make good roast potatoes !). Keep the liquid aside. This is your stock.
Making the Soup
In a large stock pan, put some of oil that comes out of the roasting of the chicken and fry off the onions until nicely browned.
Add the carrots, celery, green peppers and stir in well
Add the thyme, oregano, pepper, stockpots to the soup pan and mix in well
Then add the stock you made earlier, from step Top up with about 4 pints (2L) of hot water.
Add the cabbage and potatoes. Bring to boil, turn heat down to low-medium and let it simmer for a good hour or so to soften everything up.
Take all the bits of chicken from step 3 (check for stray bones) and chop into bite sized pieces. Then add to the soup.
Stir in well and cook for about another hour so all the flavours can merge and create a nice thick hearty soup (the potato breaks down a bit helping to thicken it up)
Serve with hot crusty bread.
Also see Soup Selection.
Notes
I made this all in one go, so I didn't pre-make the chicken the night before. This is perfectly ok, but it means taking the hot oil off the top of the stock with a spoon, rather than letting it set in the fridge. I also started the onions going by pouring some of the fat out of the roasting try as the chicken was still cooking (you could just use olive oil but you get more flavour using the chicken fat)
During cooking, you may get excess fat/foamy bits floating on the surface (this is perfectly normal), which you can skim off as you go.