Recipe #33: Saturday after St Valentine's Day Chicken Soup

This one is called 'chicken soup' because I used a whole 'chicken'. :-)

But there's other stuff in there, too...

I borrower several ideas from Ree Drummond, my second fave television personality (second only behind Jeff Probst). I've got two families I'm sharing this with to-day, so I'm making an extra large batch.

Ingredients used in the making of this dish:

For the stock and the cooking of the chicken:

10 quart stock pot
whole fresh chicken
red onion sliced
celery stalks and leaves
carrot chunked
garlic cloves halved
bay leaf
whole peppercorns
garden herb mix (parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano)
water to cover.everything


For the making of the soup:

1 c rice
1 tbs EVOO
4 tbs butter
1 small head of cabbage shredded
1 cup carrots sliced
1 cup  white onion diced
1 cup celery chunked
1/2 c green bell pepper diced
a little bit of pimento (there's a story behind this)
yellow food coloring (this is from Ree :-)


Typically, I will get the stock items with the chicken going and keep the fire on high for almost two hours, until the chicken falls off the bone. Then I remove the chicken from the pot to let it cool, and pour the entire pot through a fine mesh strainer into pot #2.

I add the cabbage to the stock in pot #2 and boil for twenty minutes or so

When the meat is cooled, I remove it from the bones, cartilage, gizzards, skin, fat, tendons, and then dice it into bite size chunks and set it aside in a bowl.

In another sauce pan I add the rice, one cup of water, and a swig of EVOO, turn the fire on medium, and let that go until the water is gone. Stir often! Set that aside when it is cooked and the water is gone.

Now, in my Cook's Essentials 11 Inch Chicken Fryer (seen below, along with pot #2 on the back burner, literally)

... I melt the butter, then add all the diced vegetables, to give them a good sweat. To this I then add the meat, along with maybe a cup of the stock, and bring it all to a quick boil.

Then this all gets dumped into the stock pot with the fire on medium low. I add the rice and four or five drops of the food coloring at this time as well.

I let this go on simmer for about twenty minutes or until it is done.

Sometimes I add a flour/butter roux to thicken the broth and give the soup more body. To-day's batch, I thought, was pretty darn good as it was - so no roux for you.

Blessings and peace to you and yours.