now really OT Re: SC - list newbie/Seasonal food.

[Laura C. Minnick]

Here's my family recipe for chicken soup.  We usually make it with
dumplings, eat the dumplings and big pieces of chicken the first night, and
then the second night shred the remaining chicken and add rice.

++++++++++++++++++
Put water in a big pot.  Start it on high heat.   Add some salt, some fresh
ground pepper, some fresh or dried onion, maybe a little dried green pepper
(not much), a couple cubes of chicken bouillon, other spices if you want.  I
use turmeric for the nice yellow color and sometimes other things.  Add a
lot of garlic.  I usually use two or three tablespoons of chopped fresh
garlic.

Add some chicken.  I usually use boneless breasts, but if your family will
eat dark meat, you could use other parts and probably get more flavor.  Turn
the heat down so it won't go all over the stove.

Look in the vegetable drawer of the frig and see what's there.  Mine usually
has onions, carrots, and celery.  Take them and clean them and chop them
into bits.   What size bits depends on whether anyone in your family will
want to pick some of it out; if so, make them bigger.  You can't have too
many onions or carrots, at least until it stops looking like soup.

Add more pepper.

Get down the bottle of sherry and the  bottle of lemon juice.  I use
whatever sherry I like to drink (usually pretty sweet and moderately cheap)
and RealLemon.  Pour out a glass of sherry for the cook.

If you have frozen chicken stock in your freezer from the last time you did
this, put it in now or earlier.  If not, add a can of chicken broth and a
can of cream of chicken soup.  Turn the heat down a little more, and let it
simmer for a long time, until the chicken starts to fall apart.

Add more pepper.

Pull out the chicken and take  knife and render it into bits.  Put it back
in.  Be careful not to burn your fingers on the hot chicken.

**Taste the broth, add salt if necessary.  Then add some sherry (make it go
"glug, glug") and some lemon (about two capfuls).  Taste, and if it needs
it, add more lemon to balance it out.  Cook it a while longer.  Repeat this
part (only one sherry glug at a time from here on) until the broth is as
rich as you want.  Meanwhile, drink sherry and make dumpling dough or
noodles.  Bring the whole thing to a boil, add dumplings or noodles and cook
for 10 more minutes.

Told you it was a family recipe!

For dinner, eat as many dumplings as there are and as much chicken as you
want.  The next night, add some more water and some rice and when the rice
is done go to ** and repeat that step until it tastes right.

I think the distinction between jewish chicken soup and any other kind is
how much chicken fat (schmaltz?) is left in the soup.  The chicken fat coats
the throat and generally makes it very rich.  My version is lower in fat
because I use breast meat rather than whole chickens.

=Cait