Chicken Soup To Die For Recipes

Steps:

• Place the chicken, celery, carrots, onions, parsnip (if using), parsley, peppercorns, bay leaves and salt in a large soup pot and cover with cold water by 1 inch.
• Bring to a boil over high heat, then immediately reduce the heat to very low. Adjust the heat until the soup is "smiling": barely moving on the surface, with an occasional bubble breaking through. Cook uncovered, until the chicken is very tender and falling off the bone, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
• When cool enough to handle, use tongs to transfer chicken from the pot to a container. Taste the broth and continue to simmer it until it is concentrated and tasty. Strain broth through a fine sieve (or a colander lined with cheesecloth) into a separate container. Discard all the solids from the strainer (or reserve the vegetables, chill and serve with vinaigrette, if you wish).
• Refrigerate chicken pieces and broth separately for at least 8 hours (or up to 3 days), until a thick layer of yellow fat has risen to the top of the broth.
• When ready to finish the soup, use your fingers to separate chicken breast meat from bones and skin. Discard bones and skin. Use two forks to pull the breast meat apart into soft chunks, or use a knife and cut into bite-size pieces. (Reserve dark meat for another use.)
• Skim chicken fat from top of broth and set aside. Place 3 tablespoons of the fat in a soup pot with a lid. Add leeks, stir to coat, and heat over medium heat until leeks begin to fry. Then reduce the heat to a gentle sizzle and cook, stirring often, until slightly softened, about 3 minutes.
• Add carrots, sprinkle with salt, stir, and cover the pot. Cook until vegetables are just tender, about 5 minutes more. (Keep in mind that vegetables will continue to cook in the soup.) Do not brown.
• Pour broth into pot with vegetables and heat to a simmer. Add noodles and simmer until heated through, soft and plumped with chicken broth. Add the breast meat, then taste broth and add salt and pepper to taste. For best flavor, soup should have some golden droplets of fat on top; if needed, add more chicken fat one teaspoon at a time.
• Serve immediately, in a tureen or from the pot, sprinkling each serving with herbs.

Steps:

• Place breast in stock pot and cover with water. Just about a gallon and a half.
• place on stove on medium heat and raise to ALMOST simmering. Turn down heat to simmer.
• As the water warms to simmer, you will see the blood and other fluids from the meat come to the top of the pot and float. Use a big table spoon, or any large serving spoon and carefully skim off all the brown foam. This might take 30 minute of careful watching.DO NOT LET BOIL! Believe me it's worth it! Removing all this "dirt" as my Grandma used to call it really "cleans" the taste of the soup.
• After all the skim has been removed, try to leave the yellow fat pools on top of the soup, thats where the flavor is.
• Add your peeled and sliced carrots, sliced celery and quarterd onion to stock and bring to a full boil for 20 minutes.
• reduce to simmer, add boulion cubes and Dill, cover and simmer for another 30 minutes.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Cook your favorite noodles and serve.