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Chicken, potato and mixed veg soup
This is the first time I've done a chicken and mixed veg thing for a while. I only used chicken because I had some to hand which needed using up, I used potatoes for the same reason and the mixed veg is the frozen mixed veg you get in the freezer section of just about any supermarket... Nothing was bought specially. That's the ideal behind the motto on the front page - I take what there is to hand to make something new for tomorrow. Does that mean I won't eat what I make on the day I make it? Well, sometimes I won't and even if I do have some on the day I'll make sure there's enough left for the day after...
I started off chopping 300g of chicken fillets into small pieces and gently browning these in some oil - usually I use olive oil but any will do... While the chicken was browning over a low heat I roughly chopped one large onion and three or four potatoes. I added the onion after the chicken had been cooking for about ten minutes, stirred it all about a few times and let it all gently sizzle for about five minutes or so.
By this point the onion was starting to brown and there was a little bit of brown residue on the bottom of the pan. I splashed in enough cold water to cover the bottom and stirred in two stock cubes - one vegetable, one ham. I should explain that I usually use ham or bacon as a meat soup base and would add vegetable and chicken stock to this - this experiment reversed the meat/stock mix. I got the ham stock cubes, by the way, because I saw them in the shop and thought they would make an interesting change... You'll note I havn't mentioned any seasoning - I find the stock cubes provide more than enough salt, I might add a little pepper and a pinch of mixed herbs if I feel like it...
Once the stock cubes were stirred in I turned the heat right up and slowly added a litre of water, stirring as the whole mix heated up. Once the water was in I added the chopped potato and three handfuls of frozen mixed veg and a handful of frozen broad beans - why the frozen broad beans? Simple - I love them so I put some in. Soup should have things you like in it. I don't like beetroot so I will never put it in my soup, no matter how healthly they are supposed to be...
Finally, I brought it to the boil before adding another litre of water. Then I put the lid on, turned the heat down and left it to simmer for about an hour. The result after this first simmering was a thin but pretty tasty soup a little like a Central and Eastern European clear soup. As it cools and sits tightly covered overnight the potatoes will have a chance to break down and thicken the mixture when I simmer it slowly for 40 minutes tomorrow...
A slice of German style black rye bread went very nicely with this one...
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