CHICKEN SOUP
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – Best Of The Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 121). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
We called this “Jewish penicillin” when I was growing up. What my mother couldn’t cure with chicken soup, she would cure with guilt! But it kept us all in line and now I wish I had used the same philosophy on my own 5 children!
There are very strong family loyalties in the Jewish home, which my Gentile father reluctantly succumbed to, as most Englishmen do in their strong, silent and stubborn way!
At least he gave in to the family circle, and with each holiday came the chicken soup, rich and potent with schmaltz that we would skim off the top of the chilled left-over soup and spread over Challah bread and sprinkle with salt when we wanted a snack.
Imagine the table we would sit down to – with Yorkshire pudding and beef and kidney pie at one end; while bagels, lax, cream cheese and matzah balls in chicken soup graced the other end. There was a hearty echo of conversation and smiles that you could “hear” coming from the next room, even though you didn’t see their faces.
And if we could steer the uncles away from political discussions and credit versus cash-and-carry, we were in good shape for another meaningful holiday get-together.
I think my children will someday remember that the home they wanted so desperately to get away from, will be again, the one they’ll enjoy returning to, when they have children of their own! It happens that way in families.
INGREDIENTS:
5 pounds cut-up chicken fryer parts
3-quarts water
3 large carrots – scraped, but not peeled, and cut in 1” pieces
1 large white onion, peeled and quartered
3 dry bay leaves
1 stalk celery – core, leaves, ribs and all – cut up small
12 whole peppercorns
1 tablespoon season salt
1 teaspoon sugar
INSTRUCTIONS:
In a large kettle, bring it all to a hard boil. Cover and simmer gently for 3 hours. Cool to lukewarm. Remove chicken and cover the pieces with just enough broth to keep it moist while you refrigerate it to use later in other recipes. Remove all the large pieces of vegetables from the broth.
Poor soup through a fine sieve, straining it 2 or 3 times. Discard remaining ingredients that you catch in the sieve. Return broth to a gentle simmer. Break 3 raw eggs into the broth – shells and all – then cover and simmer for 15 minutes; which makes the soup crystal clear when you pour it, once more, through a sieve to remove the eggs and shells and any other particles.
The calcium in both, the shells and eggs, is an added virtue of nutrition! Chill the broth. When the fat (schmaltz) rises to the top and becomes solid, lift it off with a slotted spoon and return soup to top of stove to bring back to a brief boil for only half a minute.
Serve with cooked, drained, hot noodles or rice. Don’t add these to the soup! Add the soup to the noodles or rice, in the serving bowls – as the starch will only cloud the soup all over again, making it look less appetizing! You may also use a few carrots (grated in the large hole of a vegetable grater) in the simmering broth, plus a pinch of parsley. Left-over soup freezes well up to 6 months. Serves 8 to 10.
See also…
Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Fall Harvests Americana Memories
