Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cooking Chicken Soup

By KC Kudra

A lot of people only eat soup, which has come from a packet or a can, and this is a shame because homemade soup has a wonderful flavor that cannot be compared to other kinds of soup. Anybody can make soup recipes from scratch because they are so simple. If you can boil water and add some ingredients to it, you can make a soup recipe. Soup is a versatile dish and you can choose which other ingredients to use to make your own favorite soup.

Different Types of Soup

There are too many different soup varieties to list here but you can get hot soups or chilled soups, thick soups or thin soups, fish soup, meat soup or vegetable soup, country style soup, oriental spicy soup and many more kinds. You have probably tasted a few different types of soup such as tomato soup or chicken noodle soup but what about chilled cucumber and mint soup or Japanese miso soup?

One of the best-loved soups is chicken soup and most countries have their own version of this popular dish. Chicken is cheap to buy and if you have used a chicken to make another recipes, you can make a wonderful chicken soup recipe from the carcass or bones of the bird. You can make all different sorts of chicken soup, such as cream of chicken soup, chicken rice soup, chicken noodle soup, Chinese chicken soup and more.

Perhaps chicken soup is so popular because it is so versatile. You might like to add potatoes or noodles to it or vegetables. Some people like a thick, hearty soup and others prefer a thin, watery soup.

Cooking Chicken Soup

One of the simplest ways to make chicken soup is to boil a chicken carcass in a pot of water, take the carcass out, add vegetables and herbs, and simmer the mixture for an hour. If you use a chicken carcass and leftover vegetables, you can make a delicious soup from ingredients, which you would otherwise have tossed in the trash.

When you remove the carcass from the water, you should use a sieve to pour the whole soup mixture into another pot, to ensure you get any bits of floating chicken bone. If you want to, you can pick off any bits of chicken fat or meat with your fingers and add them to the soup mixture to enrich the chicken flavor.

Chicken noodle soup has been used for many years to soothe people suffering from colds or the flu. The steam from the soup is good for congestion, the fluids are great for the illness, and chicken soup is especially soothing and comforting. There is no doubt that a bowl of homemade chicken soup will lift your spirits and cheer you up.

Do you remember your mother or grandmother making chicken soup for you as a child? Now you know just how simple it is to make your own, maybe you would like to have a go at making some delicious, comforting soup for your family to enjoy. - 15275

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