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This simple chicken stock recipe is a mouthwatering base for your next soup creation.
Jenny Baxter/Calaveras Enterprise
Soup is defined as a usually hot liquid food made by boiling vegetables, meat or fish in water. When you stop to think about all the combinations that have been created over the years, it seems to be endless. Each ethnic grouping has their own variation of what a soup should taste like and have in it. And aren’t we lucky that we have crossed cultural barriers to enjoy these culinary jewels, therefore enhancing our tastes and appreciating others cultures.
As a kid, I was usually given Campbell's chicken noodle, vegetable or vegetable beef soups for lunch. I recall my best friend growing up, Millie Sigl, and I having a contest picking out the vegetables we hated most in that vegetable soup and daring one another to eat them. I was to go first, so I chose peas, green beans and lima beans. I held my nose, put them in my mouth, made a bitter face, chewed them and then swallowed, followed by a huge glass of water! Millie never did eat hers. Today, I love peas, green beans and lima beans. I discovered as I grew up it was the texture that I disliked and not so much the flavor. When you boil something to death, as they do with canned soups, there really is not much flavor.
Making soup is so easy and the flavor is incomparable. And not only that, but you know exactly what is going into your soup pot. You can spell and read each ingredient and understand what their names mean. Try picking up a can of soup these days and read towards the end of the label. Can’t read it. Can’t pronounce it. Do not know what it means. And, boy, was I shocked when I passed the soup aisle the other day and saw the cost being over five dollars for a can of soup! Soup bases are thin liquids or cream/milk. Cream/milk-based soups are hardier and fill you up quicker. Liquid based soups can be beef, chicken, turkey, seafood, vegetable or fish stocks. Stock is the liquid made from meat, poultry, seafood or vegetables that makes soup, soup. It is the stock that gives the soup taste. A stock can be enhanced with wine or cream and thickened with flour, cornstarch or pureed vegetables.
It is hard to make a good soup without starting with a good stock, but luckily, it’s easy to make. Just add your ingredients to the pot, water and turn on the heat. Leave it to tend to itself while you do other things. And I like to use stock to cook rice, orzo, make sauces, and cook some vegetables as well. For a good beef stock, brown your bones like short ribs or beef ribs in the oven first until they are very dark. Then add them to the pot with your other ingredients and water and let them cook away. I use the shells from shrimp along with fish bones, heads and tails, veggies and dash of white wine to make a rich seafood stock. Making chicken stock is my favorite. Just remember to strain your stock, let it cool and then refrigerate it. When it is cold, de-fat your cooled stock by lifting the fat from the stock with a slotted spoon.
Chicken stock
To a large pot add:
Whole rinsed chicken inside and out
3 stalks celery
3 carrots washed and peeled
1 large halved onion
3 cloves peeled garlic cut in half
6 sprigs rinsed parsley with stems
2 sticks of cinnamon
4-star anise
8 black peppercorns
2 tsp. sea salt
Gallon spring water
Cover the pot and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. Strain the stock and when it is cool refrigerate. Discard the other ingredients except for the chicken which can be shredded and placed in the stock for a soup of your choice.
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