Classic chicken soup

Someone at work asked me for my recipe for chicken soup, so here it is. It's dead easy, just takes a lot of time on the stove. You can use this as soup or strain everything out of it and keep it as stock. I usually save it in 1 cup portions in baggies in the freezer, which makes it really easy to use.

Classic chicken soup

• 1 whole chicken cut into pieces (if you're using it for soup) or any amount of leftovers and carcasses if you're just making stock
• 2 or 3 ribs of celery
• 3-4 unpeeled garlic cloves
• 2 leeks roughly chopped
• 2 mediums onions, sliced into chunks
• 3 large carrots, cut up
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 8 sprigs of fresh parsley
• 5 springs of fresh thyme
• 10-20 black peppercorns
• optional: 1 whole chile pepper

Put it all in a very large stock pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring it all to the boil and then turn down to simmer. Skim the foamy stuff off the top when necessary and continue to simmer for about 4 hours.

Cool a bit and then strain it all so you have the veg/chicken and liquid in two separate containers. If you're going to be serving it as soup, save some of the carrots and shred some of the chicken and return it to the soup. If you're just looking for stock, then toss all the solids. Once it's totally cooled, you can seperate it and then freeze. It will keep for a few days in the fridge but quite a few months in the freezer.

Now if you're looking to add some matzoh balls to that soup, I've got a bit of a Mexican twist, of course, that you can use. This is especially excellent when you're in a week of eating a lot of matzoh-flavoured foods and need a little something different.

Poblano matzoh balls

• I do not make my balls from scratch - use any boxed mix and this will work.
• 1 large poblano pepper

Take one poblano pepper and either grill it on a bbq or in the oven until the skin is black. Take it out of the oven and cover it with a kitchen towel for a few minutes while it cools. Peel the skin and remove the seeds. The flesh of the pepper should be pretty soft and mushy.

Once you have prepared the matzoh ball mix, simply add and mix the poblano in well. Then, refrigerate and then make the balls and cook as per the instructions on the box.

They're not spicy but the pepper adds a little extra zip.

Sorry no pics for this one, but I'm sure it's not hard to imagine a steaming hot bowl of chicken soup with a couple of green matzoh balls floating in the middle . . . divine!