Jewish Penicillin – Chicken Soup

I am sortof laughing to myself as I write this post, reason being is that there has been a bit of a ruckus caused in the blogger community lately by a person stereotyping food bloggers.  Well a few months back I was trying to work out how to approach a girl friend of mine to see if she had a chicken soup recipe.  You see, Nic is Jewish, and I was worried that when I asked her if she had a rocking chicken soup recipe I could try and blog about she would tell me that not everyone of the Jewish faith have a chicken soup recipe, that I watch too much television, I should wake up to myself and not stereotype the Jewish community.Well we all have heard that Jewish Chicken Soup is the ultimate chicken soup, it cures all ills and is what I have heard being call Jewish penicillin.  With winter here what better time to cook a batch up, specially as every second person around me seems to be sick!
Luckily for me she was more than willing to share her chicken soup recipe with me, only one problem, it was all in her head.  Nic told me she would need to sit down and drag it out of her head to give to me.  The fact that it was all in her head made me even more excited about getting my hands on it, this is a recipe that you obviously learn in your mother’s/grandmother’s kitchen.

So I am delighted to share this awesome chicken soup recipe with you.  I have actually put Nic’s comments in italics throughout the recipe, because as she puts it “it’s the little tips that make it Jewish’“

Jewish Penicillin - Chicken Soup

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Course: Main (entree)

Author: Sara McCleary

Ingredients

• 1.5 kgs chicken pieces with lots of flavour
• 4 – 5 carrots
• 4 – 5 celery stalks
• 1 large onion peeled whole
• 1/2 Kg giblets optional
• Osem chicken soup mix or massel chicken stock
• Angel hair pasta
• frozen peas

DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?I love knowing when readers make my recipes, tag me on Insgragram @bellyrumbles

For the chicken I used one whole chicken, as I happened to have one and then some extra wings and legs.  Nic suggests, “you can use wings or legs, although these do tend to fall apart, but then you can pour the soup into a sieve – if you want chicken pieces to eat, use thighs – keep them whole so you can take them out if you strain the other bits and cut them up later!”

I cut my celery and carrot up in to large bite size pieces to be retained to be added back in to the soup after straining.  If you don’t wish to do this you can put them in whole and discard.  I suggest you use them in the soup.

I actually cut the onion in half and shoved a tooth pick through it to hold it together for a bit more flavour and then removed from the soup before serving.  Nic suggests, ”do not leave this in the soup to eat later.  Take the outer layer of the skin off, but leave the bulb in tact carefully slice the roots off, other wise it will fall apart in the soup”.


I didn’t use giblets as my local chicken shop didn’t have them, but next time I make the soup I will give them a go.  If you aren’t sure what giblets are have a look here.

”If you’re really game, you can use giblets – about 1/2kg (make sure you wash them and use a small knife to thoroughly clean them – any green area or grit). Don’t tell me what they are, I’m not interested in knowing – I love them, but have avoided all these years really delving into the finer points of what part of a chicken they are) and that’s all I’ll say on this point”.

I used a couple of heaped tablespoons of Massel chicken stock as we don’t have a Kosher section at our local supermarket and didn’t want to travel to the Eastern Suburbs where they are far more diverse “Osem Chicken Soup Mix (in kosher sections of Franklins or Coles) or alternatively, Massel Stock Cubes (chicken of course!). This is purely for the salt factor/taste – us Jews love our salt (and smultz {chicken fat}, but that’s another story)”.

“Put everything into a large pot/pressure cooker and add lots of water (do not brown the chicken – it will change the taste of the soup)”.

“Boil the shit out of everything (or under pressure – about half an hour), or longer if you are just putting on the stove”.

Once the soup had been cooking for a couple of hours (I used the stove top), I picked the chicken pieces out of it and put to the side.  Then strained.  I returned the carrots and celery to the soup and set it all to the side off the heat while I removed all the chicken meat from the bones.

At this stage of the cooking, as always when I am taking the meat off a BBQ chicken, chicken I have used to make stock or even Chinese roast duck that I may be carving up, my helper arrives in the kitchen.  My darling pup Sally will sit by the kitchen counter patiently knowing that some of the meat will end up as her dinner and that she will also get a few pieces gently tossed her direction while I work away.  She won’t do this with any other meat and she knows as soon as I wash my hands that I have finished and she then goes back to whatever it was she was doing.

I then skimmed the fat off the soup before adding some of the chicken back in to the soup.  I wasn’t as particular as normal about removing every tiny bit of fat and did leave some due to Nic’s comment about smultz.  I ended up with far more chicken than was needed, which was great as it was used for sandwiches and other things.

“Skim the surface of fat when done, a lot of people cool down and put in the fridge overnight so the fat on the surface hardens, much easier to remove”.

“When the soup is ready to serve, my grandmother, mum and I, put heated (frozen) peas and lochen (pronounced Lock Shen – Yiddish word for noodles.  Angel hair pasta is great make sure you snap into little pieces before boiling (do not boil in the soup, but in a separate saucepan)”.

I didn’t read the recipe properly and just added the peas straight from the freezer to warm up in the soup which I had now returned to heat.  I added the dry pasta straight to the soup to cook as well, I missed the bit about using a separate pot.  It worked fine and I just simmered very gently until the pasta was cooked through and served.

“If the taste is a little watery – just keep adding stock cubes and salt!!!!!  Serve”.
“It’s obviously a lot easier than my theatrics, but I suppose it’s the little tips that make it Jewish”.


Thanks Nic for sharing this recipe with me and also my readers.  The soup is just delicious.  I love the flavour that is absorbed by the vegetables cooking away in it, it just adds that something extra to the final soup.

Sara xxx