Soup

When my mother-in-law comes round to Sunday lunch we often have roast chicken – and a serious error in estimating the requirement for the vegetable bed I was roasting on led to the discovery of home-made soup. (I did warn you that my post-operative posts would be light-weight)

Ingredients

• Remnants of cooked chicken
  • (or 250ml, 1/3rd pint, one cup of  boiled water with a vegetable or chicken stock cube)
• One large carrot
• One small parsnip
• One medium onion
  • The three vegetables should be similar in weight: roughly 200g, a bit less than 1/2 lb.
  • (Or just about any leftover vegetables from a roast dinner – I’ve even used leeks in cheese sauce)
• Greek yoghurt (One tablespoon)
• Choice of herbs and seasoning.

 

Method

• Discard any large areas of fatty skin from the chicken carcase
• Break up the carcase and place in saucepan with 500ml (2 cups, 3/4 pint) water
• Bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 minutes with saucepan lid on.
• Strain into a fresh saucepan, discard the remnants of chicken

 

• Top, tail and peel the carrot, cut into discs
• Top, tail and peel turnip, cut into small chunks
• Peel and dice the onion.
• Mix the stock and vegetables in a fresh saucepan
• add herbs and seasoning
  • (I like a teaspoon of chopped tarragon – fresh from the garden)
• Simmer with lid on for about 20 minutes
  • (until the carrots are softened)

 

• Tip contents into blender
• Blend until smooth.
• Add a rounded tablespoon of plain Greek yoghurt, and blend
• Serve – 2 large or 3 small portions

Despite looking a bit boring before it goes into the blender the soup tends to come out a surprisingly cheerful sunshine yellow thanks to the carrot. If you’ve managed to get the same results as I do then, because of the yoghurt I think, the texture will be almost like a thick foam or very light mousse.

I typically end up making the stock immediately after lunch is over, then keep it in the fridge for a couple of days before making the soup; that does mean you can skim off any excess fat before using the stock for the soup. And if there’s any gravy left over from lunch that’s a bonus to go in the soup.