My grandparents Ma and Uputzi (which means “daddy” in Hungarian) made a phenomenally flavorful, golden, clear chicken soup. (My other grandparents, Grandma and Poppy, favored a dark, rich, earthy soup, with lots of chicken feet. Those scaly feet! They’ll never enter my kitchen.) For about eight years, I struggled, slightly crazed, to re-create that soup. I remember Ma serving it piping hot, along with paper-thin slices of raw daikon sprinkled with salt. We would dip them in our soup and purr. This wasn’t just a bowl of soup; it was an experience. But the actual soup recipe remained a mystery. Then one fine morning, as I was driving down I-95, talking to my sister on the phone (hands free!), she mentioned that Aunt Debbie actually had the recipe. I nearly drove off the road. Well, thank G-d for Aunt Debs, because I never would have gotten this right.There’s a green pepper and cauliflower in this chicken soup! Who knew?
Note: For optimum flavor and results, this soup has to be started the night before.
Crystal Clear Chicken Soup with Julienned Vegetables and Angel Hair
Servings
Ingredients
- 1 chicken cut into 8 pieces ttttt(about 31/2 pounds)
- 2 bone-in chicken breasts about 11/2 pounds
- 4 or 5 beef marrow bones about 2 pounds
- 5 medium carrots quartered
- 2 large parsnips quartered
- 2 small turnips quartered
- 2 medium parsley roots quartered, or sub in a combo of more parsnips and turnips
- 1 large green bell pepper halved, ribs and seeds removed
- 1/2 head cauliflower broken into florets
- 1 large onion
- 3 tablespoons kosher salt
- 20 parsley sprigs
- 7 garlic cloves
- 20 black or white peppercorns
- 4 whole allspice berries
- 1 large zucchini cut into 1/8 inch julienne
- 1 large carrot peeled, cut into 1/8-inch julienne
- 1 large daikon peeled, cut into 1/8-inch julienne
- 1 pound angel hair pasta cooked and drained, at room temperature
Instructions
- Place the chicken, marrow bones, carrots, parsnips, turnips, parsley roots, green pepper, cauliflower, onion, and 1 tablespoon of the salt in a 12-quart stockpot. Cover with 6 quarts cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Skim and discard the foam that forms at the top when it comes to a boil.
- 2. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons salt, the parsley, garlic, peppercorns, and allspice and return to a boil. Simmer, covered, over low heat for 1 hour. Remove the 4 chicken breasts and allow them to cool slightly. Remove the meat from the bones. Shred or chop the meat and store it in the fridge to serve in the soup or for another use. Return the bones to the pot. Continue simmering, covered, over low heat, for at least 2 hours more.
- 3. Strain the entire contents of the pot through a colander lined with cheesecloth or a clean T-shirt. Discard all the solids or save them for another use. Chill the broth overnight.
- 4. To serve the soup, remove the surface fat and pour the broth into a large pot. Bring to a simmer over low heat and cook until warm, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the zucchini, carrot, daikon, and the reserved chicken, if desired. Simmer 5 minutes to cook the vegetables and heat the chicken. Be careful to keep the soup over low heat; bringing the soup to a boil can make it cloudy. Season to taste with salt.
- 5. Place 1⁄4 cup cooked angel hair in each soup bowl and ladle the hot soup over the pasta. Serve immediately.
- 6. This soup can be frozen after the surface fat is removed. You can freeze the breast meat separately if you want to use it for other dishes.
- Recipe originally published in Joy of Kosher with Jamie Geller Magazine Fall 2014
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Is it necessary to put the soup in the fridge overnight?
To get it crystal clear it is the best way, but it will be delicious without that step.
AMEN AMEN AMEN! I love you vivid description I could see and taste everything (but those feet!) as I was reading.
you are correct!!!! the wrong pasta was used in the pict — I prefer angel hair much finer and more delicate and elegant but just buy whatever thickness or shape you love.
This looks amazing. The pasta pictured looks like spaghetti to me. When I purchase Angel Hair it is much finer. What # pasta is it, please?
I too come from a family of survivors from Poland. Sadly my father’s mother, aunts and siblings all perished so I never knew them. My mother’s mother, Bubie(grandmother in Yiddish), made a crystal clear broth, with little light fat circles that I would love to join using my spoon. I loved the pipiks (giblets) that my Zadie (grandfather) would often give me – or share if there was only one! While I appreciate your lack of desire for the chicken feet – they are such a treat for me! We add skinny little egg noodles and fluffy matzoh balls. My mother makes an amazing chicken soup too and mine is a very close 3rd. I believe that I will never meet the same quality of soup for 2 reasons; 1) nothing is richer than a grandmother/mother love’s added into the soup and 2) we don’t have old time butchers that they frequented and could get old hens for soups. I have been making my own chicken soup for many many years and I can never seem to get is quite as crystal clear as my Bubie’s, its clear but just not as clear. Our soup is cooked with carrots, parsnip, celery with dill and parsley. The fact remains that a hot bowl of Jewish chicken soup is a cure for almost anything!