Against BF’s will, I made Chicken Soup

I don’t know what it is about boys and soup.

They just don’t seem to like Chicken Soup, is it a male thing? They keep repeating that it’s something about just water and flavouring, and they’d rather have a huge, heavy, filling pasta dish or something ‘solid’.

They have no idea what they’re missing.

When I was a kid, my mom and my grandmother would make the most amazing chicken soups, and their full, complex flavours made me always polish off my bowl and drink the soup to the last drop.

This is the meal I had (sorry for the crappy lighting). And I guarantee you, it was delicious. I ate everything in that bowl (a lot of food!) and drank the soup too.

I didn’t end up doing the Asian Chicken Noodle soup I had originally intended to do, because I felt like the carrots would not be a good flavour component in something so incredibly Asian in flavour.

That, and I didn’t have any mirin or rice wine left over.

I actually don’t measure anything, but this is my rough recipe…

INGREDIENTS

3 large chicken legs (thighs and drum)
9 carrots (chopped into 2″, the thicker ones split in half)
10 shallots (in lieu of an onion I find shallots more flavourful)
1.5 cloves of minced garlic (I love garlic)
1 3″ piece of ginger cut into longer, thick slices

RECIPE

I browned the chicken legs first with some salt on both sides so that the skin doesn’t get TOO mushy

Then I put big chunks of ginger into the pot and put the browned chicken legs in there. I didn’t start to boil anything, just let it sit there, but I covered the chicken (just barely) with about 6 large cups of water

I started the chicken boiling in the pot

I chopped and fried the shallots with the minced garlic with some salt and pepper

Added in the shallots and minced garlic into the pot

Added in a good pinch of salt and soy sauce and a couple of grinds of white pepper

Brought the boil down to a simmer (don’t let it become a rolling boil)

Let it sit for 13 minutes like that at a simmer

Added in the carrots at this point

Let it simmer for another 10 minutes

Once it was done, turned it off and let it sit.

CHANGES?

Another twist I’d like to do to this recipe is to add cream to make it a creamy kind of soup to see what it would taste like, but that’s for another day.

I’d also like to have added more ginger. Maybe another 3″ root because there was a lot of liquid and chicken in there, and I am a huge fan of ginger, garlic and onions.

TO FINISH
Then I had a frozen Persimmon for dessert. It tasted like a Persimmon gelato!!

RECIPE FOR FROZEN PERSIMMON

Buy persimmon. I got the huge, Japanese Hachiya Persimmon.

Wait until it feels like a water balloon*

*I am serious about this. It will feel almost rotten or mushy, but it means it is ripe. If it doesn’t feel squishy then it is NOT READY TO EAT and you will regret this, because it will taste really freaking weird.

Put the persimmon in the freezer until frozen.

Bring it out, set it upside down on the plate (stem to the bottom), and let it defrost for 15 minutes, then put a knife through the middle.

There is no huge seed or anything inside, so just cut it all the way through, and then chop it up into little pieces, or do it all at once, and put it into a bowl, mash it, and refreeze it to make it harder, or just eat it like a gelato ice cream in little chunks.

I peeled the skin off but you don’t have to.

And here it is – it tasted like a gelato ice cream (not the creamy ice cream, just an ice). Yummy.