Gluten Free Chicken Soup
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Comment: There’s probably nothing more satisfying on a cold day when the kids are home and not feeling well then a soothing, aromatic steaming bowl of home made chicken soup on rice, elbow macaroni or by itself. Or, why not just have a bowl whenever it seems right because usually, all things considered, that’s the best time to have it.
Cooking time:
45 minutes to cook chicken, 1 hour cooking bones
Serves:
6 bowls |
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Ingredients:
1 3-4 pound roasting chicken, innards & fatty flap removed,
cavity washed with cold tap water
2 quarts water, minimum
1 whole bunch of celery with leaves, cut into 3-4 inch lengths
4 peeled carrots broken into 2-3 inch pieces + 3 peeled carrots sliced
1 large onion, sliced in quarters
1 cup frozen peas
1 red pepper cut into ½ inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
2 tbls parsley flakes
2 tbls basil flakes
1 tbls salt
2 tsp pepper
Preparation:
- In a large stock pot w/lid place chicken, water (water should completely cover the chicken rising an inch or two above the highest point), celery, onion, broken pieces of carrots, garlic, parsley, basil, salt and pepper and bring to a low boil.
- Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook the chicken until you can easily pry off breast meat and/or until the wings can be easily removed. When cooked, carefully lift the chicken out of the pot, draining the liquid back into the pot and place it on a large platter. Cover the pot and continue to simmer the liquid.
- When the chicken has cooled enough to handle, strip off all of the edible meat from the body and legs (not the wings) and return everything to the pot to simmer for at least 1 hour. In the meantime, cover the chicken meat with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
- After the hour of simmering the bones, vegetables and whatever else was in the pot, strain the liquid into a 3 quart pan w/lid gently pressing done on the mix so as to extract all liquid and return it to cook top to resume simmering at which time add the 3 sliced carrots. At this point, check your soup volume. If you do not have an estimated 1 to 1 ½ quarts of liquid add hot tap water to bring it up to the desired volume.
- While the carrots are cooking, and cook to Al Dente, wash the chicken meat and cut it up into bite-sized chunks setting aside smaller pieces for use in a salad or sandwich. Add the chicken pieces to the soup with the cup of frozen peas and turn off the heat and let the soup ‘rest’ for 30 minutes before serving.
 Note: We do not add celery to the final cooking stage because to us, we get a ‘metallic’ taste from doing that but you are free to add it if you wish – along with any other vegetables and that includes yellow or green zucchini, additional carrots, peppers, etc. |
| Sides: White Rice, Elbow Macaroni |
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Update on Soups
We’re always on the lookout for new GF soups which are increasingly finding their way into the marketplace and as we learn about them, we’ll pass the information on to you and likewise, as you come across any that deserve mention, please take a moment to let us know and we’ll post the news for all to share. We recently bought Pacific Natural Foods’ Organic French Onion and Organic Creamy Tomato (16 once containers) and were very pleased. We added Gillian’s garlic croutons and shredded cheddar cheese to the onion soup which really made it and later, croutons to the creamy tomato. Delicious.
