"It's Never Too Hot For Soup" by Grecia S

It's Never Too Hot For Soup

In January´s batch of blogs, there was one with instructions for Pho. While reading the blog, it brought back nostalgic memories of the times when I would cook with my mother. So I decided to write my blog on a similar dish called ¨Caldo de pollo¨ (If you translate it, it will say chicken broth, but it is just chicken soup).

Growing up it was never too hot to have soup. It could be 110 degrees and my mother would still serve us a big bowl of chicken soup. When we refused to eat it, she would threaten us with ¨Si no te lo comes te lo hecho por la oreja¨(Translation: If you do not eat it, I will shove it down your ear). It doesn't really make sense, but it gets the message across.

           

      İLets Begin!

What Is Needed

• Supplies
• Large pot
• Knife(Size does not matter, but choosing a small one can make it harder when cutting the meat)
• Ingredients
• Salt(2 spoonfuls)
• Water(2 cups)
• Cilantro(2 branches)
• Squash(3)
• Celery(2 sticks)
• Garlic(4 cloves)
• White onion(½)
• Carrots(3)
• An entire chicken

*CHOP ALL VEGETABLES BEFORE BEGINNING. THE SIZE OF THE CUTS DEPENDS ON PREFERENCES. BUT LARGER CUTS WILL TAKE LONGER TO COOK. *

Steps

                                                                               I.                  You must first cut the chicken into pieces so it can be easier to deal with.

1. If you are having trouble deciding where to cut the chicken, use this picture to help. (The image belongs to Martha Stewart from How To Cut A Whole Chicken)

II.                   Then place the pieces of chicken into the pot with the salt and water. When choosing a chicken for your soup, I always prefer going organic because it tastes better. Where I was raised, it was the job of the smaller children to catch the chicken and snap its neck (The chickens were raised at home to make sure it was 100% fresh), but it isn’t necessary to kill your own chicken because we have supermarkets, unless you want to go chase around chickens, then go right aHEAD. (buh dum tss).

2. Once the water begins to boil, foamy residue from the chicken will begin to rise to the surface. It is important to remove the residue so the soup does not end up with a lot of fat.


1. The residue will look like this(image came from Just One Cookbook)

III.                  Now add the garlic, onion, and celery to pot. (Be careful when adding these ingredients. The hot broth can burn the skin, so it is important to carefully add the ingredients.) Then bring down the heat to a medium, so the chicken can cook with the garlic, onion, and celery. (Wait about half an hour before going onto the next step).

IV.                  It is now time to remove the chicken pieces, so they do not fall apart and become stringy. Place the pieces in a separate container and put to the side. (Make sure not to let the chicken get cold.)

V.                  While the chicken is off to the side, add the remaining ingredients (cilantro, carrots, and squash) to the pot. (Again, be careful when adding the carrots, squash, and cilantro. When they fall into the pot, they can splash and burn the skin.)

VI.                  Close the lid and bring down the heat to low. Regularly check the soup until all the vegetables are ready(To check you can stick a fork through the pieces, it is ready when the fork can easily go through the pieces)

                                                                                    VII.                  Put the chicken back into the pot and leave it for a few minutes.

VIII.                  After the soup is ready, remove foamy substance(fat) one more time to have the soap as clean as possible.( The fat will change the flavor of the soup if left in.)

1This image contains potato and a chile that was not included in the recipe

It is time to enjoy the soup after so much work. What is great about chicken soup is that you can customize it however you like. If you don't like squash, you can replace it with corn, or add noodles if you want to embrace your wild side. It all depends on what you like, so don't be afraid to put in things that were not included above.

Above I mentioned to remove the fat as much as possible to have the soup as clean as possible, but that is not required. The fat can be left in if you want the chicken remain flavorful and keep the protein that is lost when it was boiled.