Chicken Soup (not your grandma's)

The Year of Bessemer Food

The Birmingham News printed some chicken soup recipes today so I thought I would throw mine into the mix. This chicken soup is good for the soul, but even better for the palate. It combines some flavors that you may not be accustomed to using together.

It might appear complicated at first, at least compared to opening a can of that brand name kind, but it's really not. Start the chicken. While it's in the oven, prepare the rice, and after the rice is on, slice the veggies. If you do not want to use wine in the recipe, substitute apple juice or diluted cider vinegar.

This soup will chase away the blues, clear your head, and make you feel all warm inside. Normally it would be cold outside this time of year and we would need something like this. It's described as the ultimate comfort food. But it is good on a warm January night as well, so try it.

Chicken Soup (not your grandma’s)

The chicken

3 chicken breasts, skinless*
½ cup olive oil
1 cup white wine
1 t sea salt
½ t fresh ground pepper
½ t allspice
½ t cinnamon
½ t garlic powder
1 ½ t smoked paprika

Preheat oven to 400.

Mix all ingredients except chicken in glass baking pan. Coat chicken in mixture and arrange in pan.

Bake for 35 minutes or until done.

Use fork or fingers to pull meat from bone, put in soup pot.

The veggies

2 carrots
2 celery stalks
2 small onions
½ t sea salt (or salt to taste)
2 – 3 cans chicken broth (or or use chicken bouillon and water)
pan drippings
prepared rice (recipe follows)

Peel and slice carrots, celery very thin (I use a mandoline to slice the veggies).

Quarter onions and slice very thin.

Add sliced veggies and salt to soup pot.

Add ½ cup or so of pan drippings to pot (try not to add grease).

Bring to boil, reduce heat to low and cook for 30 minutes or so (you be the judge as to when soup is done).

Add prepared rice to soup and cook for another 5 – 10 minutes.

Prepared rice

1 cup water
½ cup rice
1 t crushed rosemary

Bring water to boil, add rice and rosemary, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

*about the chicken. Some chicken breasts are huge these days. If so, filet them to make 2 pieces from each, cook all as directed, use half in soup and save the rest for chicken sandwiches.

Variations

You can use any kind of cooked chicken and get different flavors. I've used left over hot wings (remove the meat from the bones) or left over Cajun chicken. It's all good.