Chicken soup with chicken

Chicken soup is a frequent visitor here at Epsom and usually involves product from Knorr - stock cube, stock pot or chicken noodle soup.

Yesterday we thought to start from scratch with mostly fresh vegetables and with fresh chicken, a slight advance on the soup reported at reference 1.

Buy a fore quarter chicken from the butcher in Manor Green Road, which cost less than two pounds, not much more than double what a packet of chicken noodle soup would have cost. En passant, I learned that not many people buy an entire turkey for Easter these days; boned affair maybe. While I made up my order with a white pudding from Slomans.

About an hour and a half before one wants to take the soup, start to simmer the quarter chicken in a couple of pints of water.

After about three quarters of an hour, remove chicken from what is becoming stock. Remove any stray detritus with a small sieve. Skin, remove the breast and return the quarter carcase to the stock.

Add four ounces of spelt, first reported at reference 2, to the stock. Add four sticks of celery, thinly sliced crosswise. Add a large onion, coarsely chopped. Add more water, to taste. Bring back to the boil and simmer for the remaining three quarters of an hour.

Meanwhile, chop the cooked breast into cubic centimetre lumps. Coarsely chop any left over potatoes there might be to hand. Prepare any mushrooms which might be lurking at the bottom of the refrigerator, in this case half a dozen, not in peak condition.

Remove the carcase. Add the chicken pieces, the potato pieces and the finely chopped mushroom stalks to the soup six minutes from the off.

Add the mushroom pieces, gills down, three minutes from the off.

All very satisfactory. Didn't need to take bread with it on this occasion.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/chicken-soup.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/04/more-left-over-soup.html.

Reference 3: https://www.masterbutchersepsom.co.uk/. Now describing himself as long established. The man himself is the big chap in a white coat.