Tag Archives: soup

Old Fashioned Chicken Soup

This is my traditional chicken soup recipe. Made in a large stock pot over the stove. When its done you can always add Matzo ball or noodles or extra vegetables like bok choy. enjoy.

INGREDIENTS:

6-7 pound whole chicken (remove neck and liver from cavity)

5 quarts water

½ tsp. dill

½ tsp. white pepper

¼ tsp. thyme

¼ tsp. marjoram

1 Bay leaf

½ tsp. rosemary

½ tsp. Savory

2 medium onions (quartered)

2 large carrots (peeled and quartered)

1/2 pound baby carrots (diced)

1 large parsnip (peeled and diced)

2 celery stalks (quartered)

4 celery stalks (diced)

5 or more chicken bouillon cubes instead of salt to taste

1 tbsp. Fresh parsley (chopped)

DIRECTIONS:

Place the chicken in a large stock pot. Pour in 5 quarts of water and put on high heat. Add½ tsp. dill, ½ tsp. white pepper, ¼ tsp. thyme, ¼ tsp. marjoram, 1 bay leaf,

½ tsp. rosemary, ½ tsp. Savory, 2 medium onions (quartered), 2 large carrots (peeled and quartered), 2 celery stalks (quartered). Bring to a boil. Cover and turn to low and cook for 2 hours. Allow to cool for a few minutes and remove chicken to a platter. Pour broth through a large strainer removing all the solids and discard to garbage. Return broth to pot and add

1/2 pound baby carrots (diced), 4 celery stalks (diced), 1 large parsnip (peeled and diced)

1 tbsp. Fresh parsley (chopped). Return to a slow boil.

Cover chicken and allow to cool until you can safely handle it. When chicken is cool cut off breasts and save in a zip lock bag to make chicken salad.  Next carefully remove all the dark meat from the chicken discarding the skin bones and cartilage. Dice dark mean on a clean cutting board and return to soup. When the vegetables have softened add 5 or more chicken bouillon cubes and taste for saltiness. Add more if necessary. Serve HOT.

NOTES

The first thing I add to the soup is two or three and handfuls of fine egg noodles. Next I sometimes add Matzo balls.

Chicken Matzo Ball Soup

Good morning. I think this is still the morning. Its dark out so who knows. I made coffee and I flipped over my meat for the sauerbraten. So it a good start to the day.

Last night I stopped on the way home for bread. I came home with my loaf of bread and heated up meats balls and spaghetti. I ate and watched Jeopardy. Then I added 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of milk to my friendship bread starter. It still lives. Then I flipped over my meat for the sauerbraten and went to bed. Side note: I didn’t win the lottery of $700 Million dollars. It was someone in California. As the French say: say la vie.

On a positive note, yesterday’s lunch was Chicken Matzo Ball Soup. I cheated and used my insta-pot again. I also used 2 boxes of no salt chicken stock that was on sale for $1.99 each. To this, I added 3 whole chicken breasts (with the bone). To the stock, I added 1 Carrot diced, 1 Celery Stalk diced and 1 tsp Chicken bouillon (instead of salt). I turned on the pot and set it to broth. This is high pressure and 25 minutes of cooking time. I let it cool down for 30 minutes before opening it up. While is cooling I mixed up package of Matzo ball mix. The package is nothing more than matzo meal and baking soda ,but its all premeasured and packaged so I don’t have to worry about the matzo meal going stale. To that, I added ¼-cup vegetable oil and two eggs. Let it sit in the regenerator for the rest of the time (20 minutes) then added golf ball size pieces of dough to the soup along with a cup of fine noodles. I turned on the Sauté setting until the soup simmered. Then I hit cancel. I put on the lid to the the insta-pot and pressed the “keep warm” button. I let those balls cook like that for 35 minutes.   

When I finally tasted it, it seemed to have turned out perfect. Soft vegetables in a tasty and rich broth that complimented the light matzo balls and fine egg noodles. The true test is if Maryanne’s mother approves. Maryanne was going to bring some to her. This is comfort food at its best. The only thing missing was maybe a grilled cheese sandwich. Hmmm…maybe I can have any leftover soup with grilled sandwich today.

Well lets hope I can stay awake long enough to cook dinner tonight. Keep following along all week to see how this Sauerbraten thing turns out. Until tomorrow wishing you a happy and healthy hump day!

The Drunken Chef (Russ)

Beef Vegetable Soup

Good Morning. Its a chilly morning here on Long Island New York. Thursday for dinner, I made one of my favorite soups, Beef Vegetable Soup. Just like always, it seems this recipe takes me back to my childhood. I remember how large my mother would cut up the carrots and celery. The reason of course was my brother and I, but mostly me. I remember not always liking the carrots in the soup so I would eat around them. That’s when she just stopped putting them in my bowl. I guess making them a nice large size helped her to avoid them. That’s a mom for ya! Always trying to make their children happy!! Thankfully tastes change and today I love carrots in soup and use them ALL the time. You can’t have a mirepoix without carrots and mom knew that. Today the only thing I have changed over the years is now I add baby bok choy to the soup in the last ten minutes of cooking. I am excited to share this recipe with you all and hope you enjoy it.

Beef Vegetable Soup  

Serves 6 – 8

SPECIAL IMPLEMENTS

Large Pot

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs. Beef Stew Meat (cut into large bite size pieces)

2 cups Celery (large cuts)

2 cup2 Onion (cut into 1 inch pieces)

2 cups Carrots (cut into 1 inch pieces)

4 medium Potatoes (peeled and cut into pieces)

8 cups of water

6-8 bouillon cubes (or 8 tsp of better then Bouillon)

¼ tsp pepper

 2 – 4 tablespoons of Olive oil

2 heads baby bok choy (optional)

1 package wide noodles (Optional)

DIRECTIONS

In a large pot sauté beef in small batches in olive oil until is browned and there no juices in the bottom of the pot. Drain off excess fat and then add onion and celery. Sauté until onion are translucent.  Add back in all the beef. Add water, carrots and potatoes.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Add baby bok choy if you like and simmer an additional 10 minutes. Serve Hot!

Serving suggestion:

Wide noodles; prepare wide noodles according to package directions and serve them in a separate bowl. Add a little olive oil or butter to keep the noodle from sticking together. This was your family members can then add as many or as few of the noodles as they like. Plus, when you refrigerate the leftover soup overnight. The noodles don’t get all soggy and absorb all that luscious beef broth.  

NOTES: Serve with crackers and butter.

The Drunken Chef (Russ)

Chicken Stock

Chicken Stock

INGREDIENTS:

6-7 pound whole chicken (remove neck and liver from cavity) or

2 Roasted Chicken carcasses

5 quarts water

½ tsp. dill

½ tsp. white pepper

¼ tsp. thyme

¼ tsp. marjoram

1 Bay leaf

½ tsp. rosemary

½ tsp. Savory

2 medium onions (quartered)

2 large carrots (peeled and quartered)

2 celery stalks (quartered tops included)

DIRECTIONS

Place the chicken in a large stock pot. Pour in 5 quarts of water and put on high heat. Add½ tsp. dill, ½ tsp. white pepper, ¼ tsp. thyme, ¼ tsp. marjoram, 1 bay leaf, ½ tsp. rosemary, ½ tsp. Savory, 2 medium onions (quartered), 2 large carrots (peeled and quartered), 2 celery stalks (quartered). Bring to a boil. Cover and turn to low and cook for 2 hours. Allow to cool for a few minutes and remove chicken to a platter. Pour broth through a large strainer lined with cheese cloth removing all the solids and discard to garbage.

Cool in refrigerator and remove Fat.

Chicken Soup with Rice

In October, I’ll be host to witches, goblins and a ghost. I’ll serve them chicken soup on toast. Whoopee once, whoopee twice, whoopee chicken soup with rice. – Maurice Sendak

I love Maurice Sendak’s work. In honor of him and a gentleman in my office, when asked their favorite soup…….it is chicken soup with rice. I made a small pot of chicken rice soup for lunch yesterday. Along with several grilled cheese sandwiches.

The chicken stock I had made from scratch just two days earlier. Therefore, I had the stock and the chicken. Some of the chicken I have been using for Jen’s chicken salad. The rest went into this small batch of soup.

I say it was a small batch because it was just enough for the eight of us. It is funny how at first no one was interested in soup (except mike) or the grilled cheese sandwiches until it started cooking. By the time it was done, not one person turned down a bowl of soup but not everyone had a grilled cheese sandwich. Maryanne, one of my coworkers, suggested that I make her grilled cheese sandwich with mayonnaise. I did as she requested because as a personal chef we cater to our “clients” as she tried to convince me it was the best way to make it.  She shared her sandwich with Eric who thought it was good but still prefers butter over mayo, as do I.  So, however you like it, with butter or mayo everyone agreed (who ate them) that grill cheese goes well with chicken soup with rice on a cool day in the fall.

If you would like to try my soup recipe I have attached it below and if you like grilled cheese I have posted that too (click the link below)!

The Drunken Chef (Russ)

Chicken Soup with Rice (ala Insta-Pot)      

Serves 6 – 8

SPECIAL IMPLEMENTS

Insta-Pot

INGREDIENTS

8 Cups chicken stock

2 chicken breasts (from chicken stock) (cooked and cubed)

2 small carrots (diced)

2 celery stalks (diced)

2 teaspoons salt or chicken bouillon

1 bay leaf

Chopped fresh parsley

1 cup uncooked long-grain white or brown rice

1 head baby bok Choy (Diced) (Optional)

DIRECTIONS

Add all the ingredients into the Insta-pot. Set to the poultry setting for 0 minutes and make sure the keep warm button is lit. When the temperature and pressure hit there mark, the keep warm setting will start counting up. Wait for 60 minutes. After 60 minutes are up, let out any remaining steam. Stir and serve.

NOTES:

Use the Chicken Stock Recipe to make the stock.

You can also use boxed/canned stock; you can even cook the chicken in the canned stock if you do not have cooked chicken. I would use whole chicken breasts, on the bone for added flavor when using canned stock but you can use boneless breasts too. Serve with grill cheeses.  

The Drunken Chef (Russ)

White Bean Stew

INGREDIENTS: 

6 – 8 cups Chicken Broth

1 can of Cannellini beans

1 can of navy beans

1 head Baby bok choy

1 large carrot

2 stalks celery

1 medium potato

1 large onion

1 turnip

1 parsnip

¼ tsp garlic powder

¼ tsp paprika

1/8 tsp nutmeg

Fresh parsley

DIRECTIONS

Bring 2 cups of chicken stock to a boil. Add the carrot, celery, potato, onion, turnip and parsnip that has been cut into one inch pieces to the pot of chicken stock. Cover and simmer until all the vegetables are soft.

When vegetables are good ad soft use and hand blender to puree the vegetables. Add the rest of the stock, until the desired consistency it reached. Rinse and add both cans of beans. Add garlic, paprika, and nutmeg. Bring to a simmer. Simmer on low for 20 minutes.

Add 1 head of roughly chopped bok choy and simmer 10 more minutes.

Serve hot with a fresh parsley garnish.

White Bean Stew

Good morning. There is actually a chill in the air here on Long Island. It feels like the fall had finally arrived. The past two three night I have not slept well. I feel like I wake up just as tired as I went to bed. I came home from work early because I felt so bad. I bought all the fixings for a large pot of chicken stock with noodles and matzo balls.

In the pot, I threw in a whole chicken along with two boneless chicken breasts, the water, spices, onion and celery. I let cook for an hour. Then I added the other vegetables, turnip, parsnip, and a potato. Why a potato?

While I was making the chicken soup I saw a picture of Chicken Chowder and thought Jennifer might like that better. She is not really a soup person but likes stew. I guess everyone is making some kind of soup now.  INSTAGRAM was filled with soup pictures yesterday. So I decided now to make a white bean stew. This was done completely off the cuff and why I added the potato.

You see, after another hour the vegetables were now all nice and soft. I transferred them to another lager pot along with some of the stock and pureed them using my hand blender. I added just enough stock after the vegetables were pureed to get just the right consistency before adding a can of cannellini beans and a can of navy beans. Then I added some spices. Garlic powder, paprika and just the smallest pinch of nutmeg. I cooked it for 20 minutes and added some fresh parsley and baby bak-choy. It turned out great. Jennifer had two bowls! She just said that some carrots would have been nice in it. I have to agree. I forgot the carrots!

Well that’s is all for today. I am going to try and rest today. I still have to close up the pool, and mow the lawn, and do laundry…but I will still try and rest. I will post official recipes later for White Chicken Stew and Chicken stock later but now I am going to go keep Jennifer company.

You can still follow me on INSTAGRAM: HTTPS://WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM/DRUNKENCHEF82

The Drunken Chef (Russ)