I like make a chicken go as far as possible – typically we get a Sunday lunch, sandwiches the next day and a chicken pie out of one bird. Occasionally I make chicken stock but that can tend to get left unused in the freezer, so I tried making soup instead. Worked rather well.
- leftover roast chicken
- onions
- carrots
- celery
- garlic
- drop of white wine or vermouth
- small pasta (such as ditali lisci 58)
- spoon or two of double cream
Get all the meat off your chicken carcass and set aside – make a pie or sandwiches with most of it, but hold some back for your soup.
Make stock out of the carcass – put it in a saucepan, cover with water. Add a chopped onion, carrots, celery etc and a couple of crushed garlic cloves. Simmer for a couple of hours, skimming any scum or excess fat off the top.
When the stock tastes good, strain off the chicken bones and vegetables and discard.
Fry an onion and some garlic in another pan. When they are nice and soft chuck in some white wine or vermouth – I used a capful of Noilly Prat, but will be using rather more next time!
Add the stock and a couple of handfuls of small pasta and simmer to cook the pasta. Skim off any excess fat, but not all of it – I think you want this soup to be a little bit schmaltzy. Add salt and pepper to taste.
For a basic soup you could stop here, but I wanted to give this to one of my children in his packed lunch, so I added some chopped chicken breast and a spoon of double cream at this point, and whizzed it up in the blender. The little pasta pieces were pleasingly untouched by the Magimix blade, but the chicken meat was shredded.
I thought it was delicious and Henry drank every drop for school lunch the next day.