Everybody’s mum’s got a chicken soup recipe, right? It’s pretty basic stuff, or it should be, but it is deeply comforting, and nutritious, and, I think, a great thing to have in the freezer. I actually fucking love this soup. I probably do it a bit differently from my Mum, and my sister probably has her own variation too, but basically, this is what you do: you eat a chicken, you boil the chicken, you throw in some rice and carrots and onion in a pot with the chicken stock and you’re done. For the sake of the blog, though, allow me to explain in some further detail.

Ingredients

1 roast chicken (for the carcass)

150g (approx) shredded roast chicken

2 litres water

2 onions

2 carrots

100g long grain rice (e.g., basmati – brown is nicer than white)

3-5 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

Method

Step 1: After a nice oul’ roast chicken dinner, take the cooled carcass and strip it of remaining flesh. I mean meat. Chicken, even. I don’t know. Jesus this is enough to make me want to be a vegetarian. Anyway, get as much good stuff off it as you can; you can leave the gristly bits and the slippery bits on it though – they’ll just make the stock better and frankly, they aren’t that great to eat.

Step 2: Simmer the carcass for 2 hours, longer if you have time. The water will reduce about 300-400ml over the 2 hours. After the 2 hours, strain the stock into a bowl or jug, chuck the carcass, and set aside the stock for a few minutes.

Step 3: Grate the 2 carrots with a cheese grater and finely dice the onions.

Step 4: Fry the onions in a little olive oil ’til translucent. If you can’t be bothered, you can skip this step and chuck the onions straight into the pot with the stock and everything else. If you do skip this step, just know that the onions will need a little longer. But no big deal reaaaaally.

Step 4: Everything else into the pot, except shredded chicken. So, that’s rice, carrots, bay leaves, some salt, and lots and lots of black pepper. Simmer for another 20 minutes. THEN add the chicken and simmer for another 10. That’s to preserve flavour; otherwise you lose it all to the stock. Hey presto, you’re done. Enjoy your simple and delicious soup.

PS – sometimes I add a stick or two of celery and/or a diced potato or two. Also tasty. And you might want to add a squeeze of lemon at the end, but it’s easy to over-do it so be careful! As the great Adriene Mishler would say if she had a food blog: Find What Tastes Good.