Soup recipes and tricks

[PurpleChicken]

What is your favorite soup recipe of little tricks to make soup better?

I'm sure with the amount of talent in this forum you all must have some good
ones.

Thanks

 

[Blondie]

I don't know if this is a Chicago thing, but I always put a few whole cloves or a few dashes of ground cloves in the soup.

I just made chicken soup on Friday:

Whole chicken cut up
a few carrots
celery tops
onion
salt (or boullion cubes), pepper, cloves
a green herb: bay leaf, basil, fresh parsley, whatever you have on hand

put all in a pot, bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for an hour or more.

Debone chicken (my family is picky), strain broth, cut up carrots in "coins"

put back the deboned chicken and carrot coins in the strained broth

Salt to taste

serve with noodles or dumplings

YUMMY

 

[mdbucks]

Not much a a trick, but when camping(feeding10-15 boyscouts/parents) we do chicken noodle soup and add an extra bag of fine egg noodles so everyone gets plenty of noodles.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Thanks for the sugestions.

mdbucks are you in scouting? My son is a Wolf in Cub Scouts and loves it.
I see plenty of scouting trips in our future.

I never even thought about chicken soup for those. I should have.

Our Den Leader declined my offer to bring a chicken to one of the picnics
so the kids could play "Catch the Chicken". He looked at me sorta wierd.
Oh well.

Don

 

[mdbucks]

Yeah IN would be one way to put it. Currently scoutmaster for sons troop. We did the wolf-webloes II also. being part of troop gives me a lot more respect for what my dad did for us as kids he was cubmaster and the pack had almost 100 boys then asst Scoutmaster in a troop with around40 boys. I only have 6 right now and its a handfull. Just had MY frist scout get his Eagle, Lots of work, but I think worth it. Hope son stays in it there are so amny other things pulling at kids these days. Its hard to compete with 4-wheelers/video games etc.... not to mention sports and school activities. For some reason going on a hike or spending time in nature doesn't fit into thier plans.

 

[mdbucks]

Quote:
Did he even know what a REAL chicken was??

Wife is asst girlscout troop leader, her troop came over the house to do an orienteering courrse(set up and tought by my son), well most of the girls (and most of thier parents) had never seen or touched a LIVE chicken. That is the meeting where I learned You had to have a rooster to get eggs, but if you ate fertilized eggs it would kill you. I tried to explain the facts, but obviously I dont know what I was talking about.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Awesome man. That's quite the job. Scouting has changed a lot since we were
kids. The smaller numbers a better as far as I'm concerned. It's a lot more strict
too. My son goes to school in a different town so I saw it as an opportunity for
him to meet local kids. It's turned out to be so much more and we are still newbies
compared to you.

Congrats on the Eagle. That is a wonderful accomplishment. I believe having
"Eagle" on your resume is up there with PHD.

 

[Davaroo]

Making a good stock is the key. Everything balances on that in any soup.

To do it, brown the meat well in a little butter or oil, before doing anything else. Then cover the meat with water and add onion, garlic and a little salt and pepper. Simmer low til the meat separates from the bone (about an hour) and allow to cool. Then remove the solids, debone the chicken and strain the stock if you like.

This makes a golden, rich stock and vastly improves the flavor overall. Once you have that, you proceed as usual to make your soup.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
That makes sense. It's probably why some of my best soup has come
from meat that has already been cooked. The leftovers from a roasted
chicken or turkey always make good soup.

Thanks

 

[Davaroo]

Yep.