leftover chicken soup

[redbird]

I made soup from one piece of baked chicken, boxed broth, a carrot, some ginger root (from the freezer) and the white ends of three scallions. No rice or noodles, because we had a fresh baguette.It was good, and could be better.

Notes for next time: boil the carrot in broth (or the "better than bullion" stuff) instead of plain water. Maybe use two carrots. Frozen onions, or more scallions if I have them. ETA, with thanks to carbonel: celery.)

Comments

[readerjane]

Diced sweet potato also works well, if it has a lot of time to simmer. It dissolves more than carrots ever would, so gives the broth a silky texture.

[sine_nomine]

Very creative!

[otter]

Sounds tasty, and yes, those notes would improve it.

[carbonel]

I'm not a huge fan of celery for most things, but it really makes a difference in chicken soup. It would have been the third leg of the mirepoix tripod.

[redbird]

That is a good idea, which I just didn't think of. We almost always have carrots in the house; celery we buy when we have a specific use in mind.

I usually use celery if I'm making chicken soup, or stock, from bones and vegetables. I take the sad-looking cooked celery stalk out of the soup at the same time that I'm removing the bones. I sometimes use another stalk of celery in the soup, cut up and simmered for only a few minutes, if it's still fresh and reasonably crisp.

Celery can be well past that point and fine as part of a soup base. cattitude sometimes cuts it up and puts it into the sort of stew that simmers for a couple of hours, and the pieces of celery and often onion dissolve.

[carbonel]

That's how I discovered what a difference celery can make, by making chicken soup without celery because I didn't have it in the house, either.

Maybe I could freeze a few stalks and have it available without having to buy more than I need/want.