When all else fails, make chicken soup

I wrote one of these “When all else fails” posts before, but here’s another one I resort to in a moment of doubt, deflation or even illness. It’s the good old-fashioned Chicken soup! I know this one is not much to do with music, or music business, but it is one of those things that keeps me going 😉 We all need from time to time little “pick me up”.

I am fascinated abut dishes that can be found in different forms in different cultures. For example meatballs and dumplings. One of my favourites is the chicken soup. I try to sample it on my travels, whenever I come across it. But when I am home, I love making it my self 🙂 I have a really easy method that takes very little effort.

What I do is take a large oven dish with a lid, break a carrot, onion (no need to peel) and celery in to the dish, anything up to one full bulb of garlic, few pepper corns and bay leaves. Then I put a whole chicken in to the dish and cover it with chicken stock. I bring this to a boil and skim any impurities from the top. Cover the dish and place in an oven that is on 100 C or 210 F. I leave the dish in the oven for anything up to five hours.

After five hours I remove the chicken, usually debone it and use the meat for other meals, pour the liquid in to a pot through sieve and chop some carrots in to it. Boil until the carrots are still little bit firm and serve with pasta of your choice.

This soup will heat you up on a winter’s day, help you to recover from a cold, settles an upset stomach and just lifts up your spirit 🙂 Also any leftover soup is great base for tomato soup, or basically any vegetable based soup.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE