Take any chicken you have.  If you have a whole chicken or just pieces of leftover chicken parts like wings and necks and backs, that’s fine too. Never waste food.

There is a store across the street that sells a whole chicken that’s been stripped of its meat. There’s still plenty of meat on the bones and a whole pack is only one dollar. I buy it every time I need to make stock.

We eat a fair amount of asparagus. We like the fat ones as opposed to the skinny ones. The fat ones have a pretty woody stem at the bottom half. I just snap off the woody stems and save them in a plastic freezer bag and freeze them until I make chicken soup. They really add to the flavour.

Next, get out your stock pot with the drainer insert and throw in the following ingredients:

1 whole stripped chicken or parts you have saved from previous meals
1T salt
¼ tsp. pepper
4 bay leaves
1 T dried Thyme
1 T dried Chervil
1 T dried Basil
asparagus stems - if you have them. Make sure they’re rinsed well to get rid of the sand.
1 or 2 carrots
1 chopped celery but if you don’t have celery, throw in some celery seed
4 cloves garlic
1 large whole onion, cut into quarters - leave the skin on. If you use a big red onion, it will colour the soup a beautiful, rich reddish colour.
Add enough water to just cover your ingredients. Put a lid on it.

Simmer over low heat for at least an hour, until all the flavour from the chicken and the herbs have been extracted. I often put it on the lowest heat and simmer all night. Yes, all night. You can bet by morning, all the flavours that were in the various ingredients will have been extracted. Remove from heat. Let cool slightly, then lift the strainer insert and let the liquid drip into the pot. Throw the remnants on several sheets of newspaper, wrap and put in a couple of plastic garbage bags and take out immediately.

Get a fresh pot, take a big sieve and line it with a large coffee filter.  Now take a ladle and carefully pour the stock into the filter-lined sieve.  This is slow going because of the filter being quite dense.  You will, however be surprised that not only does it filter out all the little bits and pieces of stuff, but also the fat that normally sits on top and where you’d normally have to wait till it’s cool before being able to remove it.

What is left is a very flavorful, very clear broth.  Taste it to make sure you have enough salt. Adjust seasonings to taste but leave out the dried herbs. After all, you just worked real hard to make the broth clear.

This wonderful broth can then be made into noodle soup by adding a handful of the thin soup noodles.  You can add beans or peas or carrots - whatever you like - to this soup.  Or, especially if you’re not feeling well, leave it as a clear broth. 

I think you will love it.

Tags: chicken soup

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