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Frank's Back-A-Town Chicken Soup




Source of Recipe


Chef Frank Davis


List of Ingredients




1 medium chicken, split into halves
10 cups bottled water
2 ribs celery with leaves
1 onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 whole black peppercorns
6 sprigs parsley
2 bay leaves
2 tsp. Frank Davis Poultry Seasoning
2 tsp. Kosher or sea salt
1 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
1 cup broken vermicelli, uncooked
2 whole eggs, beaten
Juice of one lemon
1 cup chopped parsley for garnish
1 cup sliced green onions for garnish
1 carrot slivered
Multigrain saltine crackers

Recipe



Start off by putting the chicken into a stockpot or other large heavy pot and covering it with the cold bottled water (tap water can be used, but you won’t get the smooth mellow flavor you do from bottled water). Now cut the celery into pieces, add it to the pot along with the onion, garlic, peppercorns, parsley and bay leaves, and bring the pot to a gentle boil. Note: you don’t want the stock to boil rapidly or the soup will turn out murky and cloudy.
At this point, reduce the heat to low and skim away the foam, which has accumulated on the top of the broth. Then cover the pot halfway and simmer the broth for about 90 minutes. When the cooking time is done, remove the lid from the pot and cool the stock slightly.

Next, remove the chicken from the pot and set it aside momentarily. Then using a fine mesh sieve, carefully strain the broth, discard the seasoning debris, and immediately return the clear broth to the stockpot. For a lean version of the soup, take a ladle and skim as much chicken fat as possible from the surface of the broth. Then while the broth is still warm, go ahead and stir in the poultry seasoning and the salt and pepper. Adjust to your taste if desired.

In the meantime, remove the chicken meat from the bones and chop it up into bitesize pieces. Then add as much of the chopped meat to the broth as you wish (depending upon how rich you want the soup to be). Any remaining chicken can be set aside in your refrigerator for other uses (like, maybe, a big bowl of New Orleans chicken salad, for example—umm!).

Anyway, return the fire to low and then stir in the vermicelli—you want to allow it to simmer in the broth for approximately 15 minutes to become al dente.

Now here’s the secret to really good chicken soup:

Beat the eggs with the lemon juice. Then temper the eggs (by adding small amounts of the hot broth to the beaten eggs a little at a time to bring up the temperature of the eggs without curdling them). Then rapidly pour the egg mixture into the stockpot with the soup and whisk it in well. All that’s left is to heat the soup to serving temperature.

When you’re ready to eat, ladle the soup out into deep bowls and garnish with a generous sprinkling of chopped parsley, sliced green onions and slivered carrots. A stack of buttered multigrain crackers and a glass of choice chilled wine will top off the presentation!

Chef's Hints

1.) To produce a totally fat-free version of this chicken soup, allow the broth to come to room temperature. The cover the pot and place it into the refrigerator overnight. Then next day the fat will have congealed into a "cake" on the surface of the soup. Simply lift it up and toss it out, leaving you with "defatted" chicken broth.
2.) You can substitute other types of pasta for the vermicelli if you choose, but it is the presence of vermicelli that makes chicken soup traditional.