Roast Chicken to Chicken Soup
2001-10-15 @ 11:26 a.m.
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I tried an interesting technique yesterday when I roasted a chicken for supper. I have one of those V-shaped roasting racks that sits up out of the pan somewhat, so I cut Japanese eggplant in about 1 inch slices and tossed them in the bottom of the roasting pan under the chicken during the last 45 minutes or so that the chicken was cooking. I sprayed them with a little olive oil first so they wouldn't dry out on top. And before that I soaked them in salt water for about 30 minutes to get rid of some of the bitterness. Warning - this is not a low-fat cooking technique (but I bet you guessed that). The idea was for the eggplant to pick up some of the drippings from the chicken as it cooked.
I actually got this idea from Cook's Illustrated magazine (one of my favorite cooking magazines) when they suggested lining the bottom of a roasting pan with slices of potato that pick up the chicken juice. I had planned to put chunks of new potatoes in with the eggplant, but then I changed the menu to rice and dropped the potatoes. Good thing, too, because there isn't really all that much room under the roasting rack. Those of us who like eggplant in the first place thought it was really good.
Roast chicken is one of my favorite comfort foods. It is something I taught myself how to cook, and I like mine better than most anybody's. I brush olive oil on the skin to make it crisp and then salt it. I throw a handful of Herbs de Provence in the chicken cavity for aroma. Sometimes I add other herbs or spices, but those are the basics. Last night a put a few crushed garlic cloves in the cavity as well and sprinkled some garlic powder on the skin. As many times as I have made roast chicken you would think I'd know how long to expect it to cook, but it almost always takes longer than I anticipate. Last night supper was only half an hour late. But we were socializing with a neighbor we haven't seen much of lately, so no one seemed to mind the wait.
A whole chicken usually comes with it's liver, gizzard, heart and neck in a bag stuffed in the cavity. I freeze the neck and save it to use in making chicken broth later. It can be added to other neck bones or used with a chicken back that's left over from dividing a chicken into pieces. My wife loves the gizzard and heart, and I am fond of the liver, so I saut� them together in olive oil with a little salt as an added treat for us.
Roasting a chicken is always a good precursor to soup. After a couple of days when you're tired of looking at the leftover carcass you can use it and whatever meat is left in a chicken soup. This time of year soup is the ideal food, as far as I'm concerned, and it's hard to beat homemade chicken soup. Finish denuding the carcass of the meat and set it aside. Then put the whole naked shell in a stock pot and fill with water to cover the bird. Since it already has a bunch of herbs and garlic in the cavity, you don't need to add much flavoring except for salt and pepper. If you want to make your broth more flavorful, add some big chunks of onion, celery and carrot. I use the greenest outside pieces of celery for this since they have the strongest flavor. Put it on the stove and then forget about it for a while. The wife won't let me leave the house with the stove on, so I do this on a day when I'm planning a quiet, relaxed day at home (or a day of housecleaning - combined with soup-making, nesting just doesn't get better than this, unless you have time to make bread, too). Bring the pot to a boil and then simmer for hours.
When you are done simmering and ready to make the soup, pick the pieces out of the broth. The carcass may still look whole, but it is ready to fall apart. After you get the big pieces with tongs, you may want one of the big slotted spoons. Take out the vegies and the garlic chunks, too. Then start adding your soup ingredients in order of the things that need to cook longest. I almost always use celery and onion, sometimes potatoes, often I throw in whatever frozen vegies I have on hand. I've recently developed a liking for diced canned tomatoes in my soup. Add the chicken, broken into bite size pieces, last. Simmer it long enough to let all the flavors come together. If I want noodles or pasta in my soup I cook that separately and put the pasta in the bottom of each bowl when serving the soup. I don't like soggy pasta in my soup leftovers.
Wine notes: roast chicken matches with most wines pretty well. It's one of the few things I actually recommend Chardonnay with. Our side dishes were also pretty versatile. So we were wide open last night for choices. One of my favorite wines with roast chicken is Pinot Noir. We had a Bourgogne from Antonin Rodet (1999 and about $10). It was very good. After we finished that, we polished off a bottle of Australian Cabernet that Jake and I had opened Saturday night for our date (Rosemount Show Reserve 1998, about $20 - the date and the wine were both spectacular). Chicken soup is also versatile as far as wine goes (beer's good, too). Consider your other ingredients when deciding on the wine. With lots of tomatoes you want an acidic wine, either white (Pinot Grigio, Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc) or red (Sangiovese, Ciro, or Chianti).
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