Classic Chicken Soup

Name: Classic Chicken Soup
Yield: Yield: 2½-3 quarts
Ingredients: 4 quarts cold water (quality is important here, so if you use bottled water to make coffee or tea, use it here); Several leaves of mild-flavored lettuce, such as Boston or iceberg, if no leek greens are available; 3 celery stalks, cut into large chunks; Salt; 2 large leeks, trimmed (reserve long green leaves), washed of all traces of sand, and cut into large pieces, or if absolutely necessary, 1 sweet red onion, peeled and quartered; kreplach, matzoh balls, cooked thin egg noodles, or rice; One 5- to 6-pound fowl or stewing hen (not a roaster) and its giblets (reserve the liver for another use); 2 chicken feet, or 1 pound chicken wings; About ½ cup snipped fresh dill; 10–12 peppercorns, lightly crushed; 2 parsnips (about ½ pound), scraped and cut into chunks; 1 parsley root (petrouchka), peeled and cut into chunks (often found in greenmarkets and specialty stores, as well as supermarkets with well-stocked produce departments; optional); 2 large onions, 1 peeled and quartered, 1 washed, roots trimmed but left unpeeled, and quartered; 6 fresh parsley sprigs; ½ cup celery leaves; 5 large carrots (about 1–1¼ pounds), scraped and halved; 2–3 garlic cloves, peeled; 1 bay leaf

Preparation info

Yield:
2½-3 quarts

Difficulty
Complex

Appears in

The Gefilte Variations

By Jayne Cohen

Published 2000

About

From Maimonides on, much has been made of the curative powers of Jewish chicken soup—“Jewish penicillin,” “the doctor who makes house calls,” and so on. Now it seems, the doctor often needs doctoring—and not just in America. A friend in Verona, Italy, confessed that Italian Jews too at times enhance their homemade soups with imported Israeli bouillon cubes for a needed jolt of flavor.

Broth is no more than the simmered essence of its ingredients, and the problem here, of course, is

Ingredients

Side dish
Soup
Jewish
Gluten-free

Ingredients

Method