Basic Chicken Soup

[Another Meat Head]

Hey Folks!

Basic Chicken Soup:

1 Serving will be about 3.5 cups

INGREDIENTS:

1.5 Cups finely chopped pre-cooked chicken per serving

2 Cups water per serving

A dab of Ghee (enough to stir-fry a portion of the chicken in a pan or soup pot)

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What is a pot but a frying pan with walls to keep the splatter from messing up the stove? I rarely use pans. Plus pots always have matching lids. You can fry in a separate pan then combine everything in a pot. I prefer to do it all in a pot. If you do fry in a separate pan be sure to deglaze the pan and add that solution to the combined mixture.

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I can easily consume 2 servings of this. It is surprisingly flavorful. It is also something very different than frying, grilling or baking meat which I sometimes get tired of, mostly because preparations of meat tend to seem greasy and fatty when meat dominates your diet and there is significantly less variety in meals, not using any vegetable or carb products. 

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DIRECTIONS:

1. Cook the chicken in advance. I use a rotisserie chicken from Costco. You can work from raw chicken of any source of course. I recommend baked but however it is cooked don't crisp it from flame of fry pan. The bulk of your chicken should be cooked from indirect heat like hot air or steamed. You can fry it but do most of the cooking by covering the pan with a lid and steaming it under low heat. Avoid overcooking it. 

2. Using Ghee, lightly brown 1/2 cup per serving of chopped pre-cooked chicken.

2. Add 2 cups water per serving. 

3. Heat this to serving temperature.

4. Chop up pre-cooked chicken to form 1 cup. 

5. If it is cold, heat the cup per person of chopped chicken in microwave for 1-1.5 minutes. You want it heated but not so much to cook it.

6. Add this heated chopped chicken to the existing browned chicken and water mixture.

It is ready to serve.

You could add salt to taste. I do not think it needs added salt. I find that the browning a portion of the chicken in Ghee provides plenty of salted flavor.

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* THE TIP: Only use a small portion of the chicken to flavor the water. What you need to avoid is overcooking all the chicken. Somehow meat cooked too much in liquid is dry and tough even though it has cooked in liquid. The microwaved chicken will be warm and tender. Only the portion of the chicken which was browned will be cooked more. This way you end up with mostly tender moist meat with accents of browned meat adding interesting texture and flavor. What you will avoid is that dry tough meat consistency which comes from overcooking meat in liquid.

 

[Another Meat Head]

Recipe Revision:

I am now basically building a base of concentrated soup using a small amount of meat, Ghee and salt (optional) then after deglazing the pan adding water to increase the volume which I then bring up the temperature then finally add finely chopped meat.

I am no longer preheating that additional meat. I typically use a Costco rotisserie chicken. I buy it in advance and it is stored in the frig. The meat is going to be precooked no matter what. It is also likely to be refrigerated. To avoid overcooking the meat I am not even warming it up before adding it to the soup base. That liquid is going to be hot enough to heat the added meat. This way it will be the tenderest possible. 

Edited May 19 by Another Meat Head

[Miranda]

You have reminded me, I haven't had chicken soup in a while. I prefer to boil a pack of drumsticks for a few minutes to get the scummy foam to rise. Skim that off. Let it simmer on low for two hours. Let cool. Fish out the legs with tongs. Debone. Put meat back in broth. It shreds itself. Very fatty because of skin and very tasty because of bones.