Jewish Penicillin Chicken Soup Recipes

JEWISH PENICILLIN (CHICKEN SOUP)

Steps:

• 1. The most important part is to rinse the inside of the chicken under cold water. You must remove all the liver and any other brown material. This will ensure after your skimming to remove the scum at the initial simmer, you will get a good clear soup-not schmutzy (shmoot-zee), which is ok but not as nice a clear soup.
• 2. In a large pot bring the chicken, water and salt to a simmer over high heat. Reduce heat and let simmer for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum that comes to the surface. You can use a fine mesh skimmer or a slotted spoon works fine. Stir the chicken once or twice during this process which will loose the schmutz for skimming. When you start getting only white foam, add carrots, celery, parsnip, leek,onion and black peppercorns. Simmer, uncovered,very gently, but steadily, for 3 to 4 hours. Add the parley and the dill in the last 30 minutes, or you will get green soup. Remove from heat and cool to tepid. Refrigerate overnight.
• 3. Remove most of the chicken fat that has hardened on top of the soup. Strain the soup through a large colander into another pot. Pick out any parsnip or carrots you may like to serve with the soup and discard your solids. In years past, the chicken was so flavorful that the meat was still delicious, but todays chicken, not so good. Mine as well pitch it. Reheat soup and serve as a clear broth or you can cook some noodles separately and add or for the ultimate experience, add matzo balls (Knaidlach). Will have a recipe you can follow for that, just search for Knaidlach.

CHICKEN SOUP (((JEWISH PENICILLIN)))

Steps:

• Do not cut up the chicken.
• Place the whole chicken in a very large pot.
• Cover chicken with water.
• Place on high heat and bring to a boil.
• Cook for 5 minutes.
• Remove from heat& skim the scum off the top.
• Slice carrots across into pieces 1/4" thick and place into pot.
• Slice celery the same as the carrots and place into pot.
• Quarter onion and place into pot.
• Peel& quarter the sweet potatoes and place into pot.
• Cut up parsnips and place into pot.
• Place the soup greens, which are the tops of anise, into the pot.
• Discard the actual anise root.
• Place pot back on the burner on medium-low heat and simmer.
• Slightly season with salt, pepper and garlic to taste.
• Cover and continue to simmer until vegetables are tender and the chicken is done and almost falling off the bone.
• Remove the chicken from the pot and remove all of the chicken from the carcass.
• Discard the carcass and return the chicken pieces back to the pot.
• Taste to see if it is seasoned to your liking.
• If it's not, adjust with more salt, pepper and garlic as needed.
• Separately boil the pot stickers and then add them to the soup just before serving, or else you can make matzo balls as directed on the box of matzo ball mix, and then add the matzo balls to the soup just before serving.

JEWISH CHICKEN SOUP

Steps:

• Place the chicken into a large pot with the breast side down. Fill with enough cold water to reach about 3 inches from the top of the pot. Add the onion, carrot, parsnip, celery and dill. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, and cook, partially covered for 2 hours. Do not let the soup boil. Skim any fat from the top of the soup, and add the garlic cloves. Partially cover, and simmer for another 2 hours for best flavor.
• In a medium bowl, mix together the matzo meal, eggs, oil, salt, and 1/4 cup of the broth from the chicken soup. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes to set up.
• Bring a separate pot of water to a rolling boil. Roll the matzo mixture into about 16 balls. Wet your hands to keep the dough from sticking to them. Drop the balls into boiling water, cover, and cook for about 35 minutes.
• While the matzo balls are cooking, strain the broth from the chicken soup. Return the broth to the pot. Remove the bones and skin from the chicken and cut into pieces. Return to the soup, or leave the soup as a broth, and reserve the chicken for other uses. Remove the matzo balls from the water, and serve in the hot chicken soup.

MATZO BALL SOUP - CHICKEN SOUP WITH 3 MATZO BALL RECIPES

Steps:

• This recipe focuses on the chicken soup that is served together with the matzo balls. You'll want to make the matzo balls separately, then serve this soup together with the matzo balls. I recommend one of these three recipes for the matzo balls - floaters, sinkers, or gluten free. I've been super specific with the instructions here, but once you've made this soup a time or two, you'll see that this whole process is very flexible. Making chicken soup "your own" is part of the fun, so use whatever process and ingredients work best for you!
• I typically add celery and onion as the main vegetables when cooking my soup stock, though you can add carrots too. I prefer adding carrots at the end of cooking, to avoid the stock becoming overly sweet - we prefer a more savory broth. I highly recommend putting in fresh vegetables after the chicken stock is cooked; they'll be much more flavorful that way (otherwise they tend to be mushy and boring). For the first pound of celery, cut it into large 1-inch chunks (you can include any celery leaves as well).
• The rest of the celery and the carrots (which will end up in the finished soup that is served) should be sliced no thicker than 1/2 inch, with larger stalks and carrots halved lengthwise before cutting into chunks. The uniform size will ensure the pieces cook quickly and evenly. Reserve. (By the way, these veggies are optional - some people like their chicken soup without any vegetables.)
• If using saffron, crush the saffron threads in a mortar and pestle until pulverized to powder. Note: saffron adds a depth of flavor and a deep golden color to the broth, but true saffron (the only kind with flavor) is very pricey. It's got a very nice, but distinctive, essence, so don't add it unless you know you enjoy it. The soup will be delicious with or without it.
• Remove the root end of the onion (it can sometimes be a bit dirty), then slice the whole onion into two halves. Leave the skin on, but make sure it is rinsed clean.
• If using a whole chicken, make sure any gizzards that might be hidden inside are removed (they'll make the stock murky and cloudy). Place the chicken into a 10 quart or larger stock pot. Cover with 5 quarts (20 cups) of water.
• Bring water to a boil over medium high heat. Let the chicken simmer for 10-15 minutes, skimming the foam and particles that rise to the surface of the water periodically, until most of the foam is gone.
• Replenish the liquid that was removed during scumming with hot water (it's usually around 1-2 cups).
• Do a final skimming to remove any leftover foam. Add the first pound of celery (the larger pieces), onion, parsley (unchopped), 2/3 of the dill (unchopped), peppercorns, cloves, and bay leaves to the pot. Add 1 tbsp kosher salt to the water (if you're salt sensitive or using a kosher salted bird, you may wish to salt less). Bring back to a simmer. From this point on, it's important not to let the soup come to a rolling boil. A slow and even simmer is best - if the soup boils quickly, the broth may become cloudy.
• If you are adding the saffron, add it to the pot now. Spoon a little of the hot water from the pot into the mortar, stir, then pour it out to make sure you get every bit of saffron into the pot.
• Put the lid on the pot and vent it. Reduce heat to medium low so the soup is slowly simmering. Let the soup cook for roughly 90 minutes.
• Test for doneness by pulling the leg from the chicken. It should easily separate, showing that the chicken has become quite tender. If not using a whole chicken, stick a fork into one of the dark meat pieces to see if it flakes tenderly. When chicken is ready, turn off the heat. Use a pair of tongs to carefully pull the chicken from the broth (it may fall apart into pieces as you pull it out - that's a good sign!). Put it on a plate or in a bowl.
• Allow the chicken and the broth to cool down for 20-30 minutes, until the pot handles are cool enough to touch and lift. Carefully strain the broth into another pot or large bowl (6 quart) through a mesh strainer. Discard the celery and onion (which will be very mushy and flavorless at this point), spices, herbs, and onion halves. If you used a bowl here, clean the pot and add the strained stock back to the pot again - it will need to cook a little longer.
• Note: When the soup is completely cool, you can skim the fat from the top of the broth if you want to-- it will come off in a gel-like layer (this is the "schmaltz"). I actually don't like to skim the fat; those droplets on the surface make the broth silky and give it flavor.
• Pull the meat from the chicken bones into bite-sized pieces.
• Now is the time to add the reserved fresh sliced veggies to the pot (1 pound celery, 1 pound carrots). Bring the broth to a simmer - not a boil - and let the vegetables cook for 20-30 minutes until tender. (If you're not adding additional veggies, just skip ahead to the next step).
• Remove stems from the remaining fresh dill and chop it up.
• Stir the cooked chicken pieces and the dill into the soup with the vegetables, and simmer for a couple of minutes more. Taste the chicken broth and season with additional salt, if desired.
• I generally cook my matzo balls in homemade chicken stock in a separate pot. Technically you can cook matzo balls (or kreplach or noodles or whatever) directly in the soup broth, but it will soak up a lot of the yummy stock, leaving you with very little broth for serving. If you prefer to cook your starch of choice directly in the soup, do so before you add the reserved vegetables and chicken pieces - just know you'll be left with very little broth for serving.
• Serve individual portions of soup ladled over the matzo balls. I usually add about 1.5 cups of soup per bowl, and 2 matzo balls per serving (depending on the size of the matzo balls).