Tuesday, April 21

Soups you Sir!


We had a roast chicken at the weekend , complete with lovely Agria potato's , roasted crunchy in duck fat, cauliflower in a very cheesy cheese sauce, and steamed ginger pudding with proper custard (5 egg yolks, yikes, for some reason I find cooking anything with large amounts of egg the last word in decadence) Anyway, I think old skool covers it!
So after spending pre-recession amounts of dosh on an Organic chicken, (which I am pleased to say did taste totally delish, although I am loath to say it was like chicken "used" to taste, in our house back in the day, chicken was roasted to incineration, or covered in sweet & sour sauce, ergo it tasted of dry nothing or pineapple....), I wanted to get every last bit of yummy out of it, in my book (or blog)this means chicken stock........
I cant encourage you enough to make your own stock, for a number of reasons, it tastes better, (the best reason come to think of it...) , you know what is in it, and 1 litre of a good quality chicken stock I saw at the Seafood Produce Market today was $13.99!!!!!!!!! forgive the ! marks, but when you know what goes into chicken stock, you will go ! as well
So for the price of a bottle of wine on special at New World , all it takes is your roasted chicken carcass , or indeed any chicken bones you can lay your hands on (my butcher sells the raw carcasses for a couple of bucks a tray) which you put into a large saucepan with an onion, a couple of carrots, a leak and some celery (from the garden, wow does it taste better) all roughly chopped . Add maybe 8 or 9 peppercorns, two bay leaves and a small bunch of parsley if you have it, cover with cold water & bring to the boil. When it boils turn the heat down & let it "blip" gently away on the stove top for a couple of hours (yes, a long time, but you are not standing over the pot stirring for that long...). Strain out the debris & either use as is, or pop it in the fridge over night, in which case any fat will solidify at the top & you can spoon it off. I don't add any seasoning to my stock until I actually use it in a meal, if you want to make a stronger flavour just boil your stock down until it is the required strength..........Bask in the fug of a great smelling kitchen, and make some soup, yum!
We are having French Onion soup for supper, complete with cheesy toasts on top, I will trade wacky dreams for a cheesy toast any day.......will post the recipe tomorrow:) In the meantime have posted a couple of garden pics, from a distance you cant see the weeds.......

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