Comfort Food “Cleanse”

An Ode to Homemade Chicken Soup

Happy New Year!

Yup – in France I’m allowed to wish you a Happy New Year right up until the end of January. It’s one of my favorite Gallic get-out-of-jail-free cards. It takes the French some time to rouse themselves from the stupor of champagne, foie gras and oysters that crown Christmas and the New Year.

Before the comments go wild, notice “cleanse” in the title is in quotes. I wouldn’t want anyone to think there is a faddish maple syrup cayenne whatever element to this post. This is “cleanse” as in “cleanse your palette” not “enema whole new you”. It’s just soup. Promise.

January is soup month in my kitchen. If I still lived Paris it would be sushi month. Or Bo Bun month. Anything to lighten up the routine and rinse the palette after the excesses of the holidays. I make big batches of soup to freeze – mushroom and chestnut, red lentil curry and sweet potato, simple tomato, which my son loves gratinée (with stale bread and melted cheese on top) like my French onion soup with a dash of cognac.

Sometimes I stick with a smooth velouté of one vegetable – broccoli or butternut squash. Sometimes it’s all about the chunky – white beans and spelt in my minestrone. But the one that hits both my cleanse and comfort food buttons is homemade chicken soup.

I started making my own chicken soup out of necessity. Canned chicken broth simply doesn’t exist in France, only the little dehydrated Knorr-like cubes, which add nothing so much as salt and a vague MSG-like aftertaste. Cooking in another culture always involves hurtles and adjustments, but the chicken broth was a biggie.

I first confronted this question when I threw a Passover seder in Paris in 2006. How to make matzo ball soup for 18 people with tiny yellow cubes? My mother came to the rescue by luging several 48oz. cans of College Inn chicken broth across the ocean in her suitcase. My mother loved carrying things across the ocean – often in her lap, sometimes more than once. She brought the Lalique wine glasses she and my father purchased in Paris in the 70s back to Paris 40 years later so I could get some use out of the champagne coups.

Over the years she carried cake plates, a patchwork quilt, a fish poacher, and the wood handled bread knife that remains a talisman from my childhood. It was all part of her “Stuff is Love” theory: If you transfer enough objects from your old home to your new home, you never left.

But overweight baggage is not a long term chicken soup solution. So I had to learn how to do it myself.

Winter soup begins with a winter market. Even in the darkest days of January, the winter market still offers a splash of color, bright beets, golden turnips, sunny orange globes of pumpkin and squash.

You can put lots of things in a chicken soup, but you need a few basics: onion, leek, turnips (white or golden), fennel, celery and the sweetest carrots you can find. I always add a parsnip or parsley root (also a bit sweet). I keep fresh herbs in water on the door of the fridge – a bunch of parsley is always welcome. This time I didn’t have it, nobody died. Fresh dill isn’t always available in Provence, but when I find it I tend to add it just before serving – I like it better as a garnish than an ingredient.

Look at all those veggies! Don’t you feel proud of yourself already?

On to the chicken. I’m always telling people, the French love a culinary shortcut as much as the next culture (ok, maybe not as much as American culture). But sometimes there’s a hack that saves time and adds flavor. Win-win. To avoid hours standing over the pot, skimming foam and fat, I start my chicken soup with a whole roast chicken, rather than a raw one. It’s less work, and you get the slightly caramelized flavor of the skin and the benefit of some salt and herbs baked in.

I love this cat, but one day, she’s going to end up with a burnt derriere.

My chicken man (I have a chicken man, Hello Freddy!) was on vacation for a month, so I was delighted to see him. And not just for soup. I missed our easy Saturday lunch of roast chicken, potato galette and green salad.

The spices are simple but essential: curcuma (turmeric) for a golden color, whole cumin and coriander seeds for depth, cloves and Chinese five spice for sweetness, black peppercorns and coarse sea salt. I also add two coins of fresh ginger for zip.

And the secret ingredient, because my friend Amanda told me to (I think she got it from the Jewish Forward): two prunes.

I love an old wives’ tale – especially one that makes so much sense. Prunes are used to add sweetness to lots of my North African tagines. They were essential to my grandmother’s ugly but delicious Tzimmes. Even the French, who don’t always approve of sweet and salty combos, make lapin aux pruneaux – rabbit with prunes, pork belly and cognac (note to self: when I can bare to eat real food again, come back to this one).

Wishing you a golden, simmering start to 2024!

Homemade Chicken Soup

This is exactly what I feel like I need to be eating at the beginning of a new year – lots of veggies, big bites of protein, clear golden broth loaded with antioxidant rich turmeric and ginger. But this is sneaky health food. You feel full and warm and cozy - not comatose.

1 small roast chicken (one from the supermarket deli will do just fine)

Veggies:

1 onion

2 branches of celery with leaves

1 small bulb fennel, or half a larger bulb

3 large turnips, golden or otherwise

2 large carrots

1 leek, cleaned

1 parsnip or parsley root

½ bunch of fresh parsley

2 coins of fresh ginger – about ¼ inch thick each

2 or 3 prunes

Spices:

1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

3 whole cloves

1/8 teaspoon Chinese 5 spice (or gingerbread/pumpkin pie spice in a pinch)

10 whole black peppercorns

2 teaspoons coarse sea salt OR 1 teaspoon of fine sea salt – err on the side of caution with salt. You can always add more.

Place the roast chicken and any juices in the bottom of your largest stockpot. Cut the carrots, turnips, parsnip and leek in half – you want big chunks so they don’t overcook, and so you can fish them out easily to dice for the final soup. Peel the onion and stick the whole cloves into it like you would a thumbtack (this is so you can find them easily later). Add fennel and celery, spices, ginger and prunes. Cover everything with 4 to 4 ½ liters of water.

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, 2 ½ to 3 hours. Nothing to supervise, just let it bubble gently away. It will start to smell right when it’s done.

Let cool. Fish out the chicken, take the meat off the bones with your hands, rip or chop into bite sized pieces. Fish out the  vegetables, remove the cloves from the onion, chop everything into bite side pieces and set aside. The leek will look like mush, chop it anyway. Strain the broth through a fine mesh sieve, pressing some of the prune plup into the broth. Discard spices, prune pits and parsley.

If freezing: Divide the chopped chicken and veggies between your containers, cover with broth. Freeze.

If serving: Add the strained broth and chopped chicken and veggies back to the pot and heat. Serve immediately. If you want noodles, add raw vermicelli or broken up rice noodles (anything small that cooks quickly) when you reheat.

Serves 8

Bon Appétit!

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My mom’s Lalique champagne coups are still going strong. That wobbly pair in the front are not Lalique – just a couple of drunken martini glasses I found at a brocante a million years ago. I never use them, but I love seeing their woozy faces when I open the armoire.

A bientôt! xo