'Flu Season Food: Chicken Broth

(ftw?)

Yes, it is upon us again. I have personally fought off at least 2 colds since October and succumbed to another when First Defence didn’t quite cut it and I am now trying to ward off the horrible cold/cough my son has been off school with this week. Apart from THAT virus, which is doing the rounds again, the nasty thing going round at the moment is being referred to as The Cold. “Is it The Cold?” “Do you have The Cold?” “I’ve had The Cold for at least 2 weeks now.” “I am knocked out by The Cold.” Whatever it is we have is not nice on the throat - it is sore and is accompanied by a dry, irritating cough. My son’s cough is of the barking sea lion variety and loud enough that I keep wanting to ban him from the sitting room when I am watching TV. I don’t of course but I still have to restrain myself from tutting and being irritated, especially as I have The Cough myself. Bad mother.

I hit the hot toddies this week – a limocello hot toddy from Gelupo which was an absolute boon when I needed a pick me up in the afternoon after traipsing round Central London on various missions (and paired so well with the prune and armagnac gelato - it is never too cold for Gelupo gelato). And last night mashing up honey, lemon and a very fine medlar brandy given to me by Linda Duffin of Mrs Portly’s Kitchen.

But today it is all about the chicken soup. There are a million and one ways of making the health restoring, comforting, penicillin sort; I want mine to have a throat soothing fat droplets floating on top, sweet melting carrots (other root vegetables are available and welcome except for parsnips which overwhelm ALL the other flavours) and as many greens as I can push into the broth. My usual is to use the zero minute method for poaching a whole chicken. This is very simple – you cover a chicken with cold water or stock, add any aromatics and vegetables you like, making sure you season well, bring it up to high pressure and then remove from the heat. Leave it to drop pressure naturally and the chicken will be cooked through, as will the vegetables. You can then pull off the meat, return back to the soup and add anything else you like. I love this method for its simplicity and for the fuel saving, and to intensify the flavour of the liquor, I will often leave it to sit for up to an hour so it can develop. But, as buying a decent chicken is quite an expensive undertaking these days and prohibitively so for some, I wanted to come up with a cheaper alternative that would give as much goodness and flavour to a soup as a whole chicken.

I think this does it. It has a much longer cook time, but as it is at pressure it will be on a very low heat source. It is rich in healthy chicken fats or fatty acids, (in particular oleic and palmitic) and collagen as it has had time to break down into the cooking liquor. I will usually use a light chicken stock for the liquid, but water works just fine - it won’t be as intensely chickeny but there are enough other flavours going on for that not to matter too much.

You don’t have to add all the spices to this. I do so as I think when you are fighting off a cold you need all the help you can get and these will definitely do that. If you are adding turmeric, you should definitely add the black pepper though as it helps with the absorption of curcumin. Oh – and you can also add rice, potatoes, quinoa, bulgar wheat in place of the noodles. I love white basmati in a soup, softened, but not quite collapsed into a congee style tenderness.

Warmly Spiced Chicken Noodle Soup

For the broth:

4-6 chicken drumsticks

1 unpeeled small onion, halved

Sprigs of any fresh herbs you like – bay, tarragon, thyme, oregano, parsley

1 head of garlic, broken into cloves

10g ginger, sliced

2cm piece cinnamon stick, broken up

3 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed

A few allspice berries, lightly crushed

½ tsp black peppercorns, lightly crushed

½ tsp turmeric

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock or water

For the soup:

2 large carrots, cut into slices on the diagonal (and or squash/other root vegetables)

3 sticks of celery, cut into 1cm slices

50g noodles – I usually break up spaghetti or buy egg noodles from the Polish corner shop

1 tomato, pureed

3 leeks, thickly sliced

Any greens - this weekend mine has a large courgette and the dark leaves from a sprout top

A large pinch saffron, soaked in warm water (optional)

An optional gremolata, to serve:

1 garlic clove, very finely chopped

Leaves from a sprig of tarragon, finely chopped

Leaves from a few sprigs parsley, finely chopped

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Put the chicken, herbs and garlic in your pressure cooker with the stock or water. Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Adjust the heat to maintain the pressure and cook at high pressure for 10 minutes. Leave to drop pressure naturally, and make sure you don’t open for at least 10 minutes from the time you take it off the heat. This is all about getting the balance right between making sure the broth is well flavoured, but that the meat retains that flavour too.

Remove the chicken from the broth. When it is cool enough to handle, pull off the meat and discard everything else – you might want to finely chop some of the skin to be added to the soup too. I shred it almost to a puree with a Chinese cleaver. Strain the broth, squashing the flesh from the garlic cloves into the liquid, then return to the pressure cooker.

Add the carrots, celery, noodles and tomato to the broth. Return to high pressure and cook for 1 minute. Fast release. Add the leeks, courgettes, noodles and any other greens you might want to add, along with the saffron if using. Stir back in the chicken. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if necessary.

Bring up to high pressure again and immediately remove from the heat. Leave to stand for 1 minute, then release the remaining pressure.

Mix the garlic, herbs and lemon zest together into a gremolata. Add the lemon juice a little at a time to the soup to taste. Ladle into bowls and serve with the gremolata.

Mine does look murky, I know - that is because of all the dark leafy greens and because the broth isn’t clear thanks to the mashing in of the garlic cloves. But it tastes just as you want it to.

And finally….a new thing!

I have decided to add a section to every post on everything else I have cooked in the pressure cooker in the intervening days, purely because I think it is helpful for everyone to see how versatile/useful/every day it can be. So:

What I’ve cooked in my pressure cooker this week.

5 thermos meals for the children:

• A one pot vegetarian curry with rice

• Black beans, sweetcorn and and rice flavoured with bacon, coriander, chipotle

• A chickpea pilau

• Chicken and potato broccoli braised with tomato, garlic, capers, lemon etc

• Keema peas, with potatoes and chickpeas

Some batch cooking:

• A 500g bag chickpeas

• A 500g bag of black beans

• A pile of brown rice

• A pile of pearled barley

• Jerusalem artichoke puree (steamed at HP in skins for 7 mins, natural release)

• A dal

• A plum compote (to be kept in the fridge for the children’s breakfasts)

• A large bunch of medium sized beetroot (did for 6 mins HP, natural release)

• Quick preserved lemon (recipe in Modern Pressure Cooking), to use up some of my Crowd Farming lemon bounty

Red cabbage braised with endive, orange and sherry soaked cranberries (a Christmas recipe I shall share soon).

Various greens throughout the week including broccoli, sprout tops and green beans

Par steamed potatoes before roasting

Roast cabbage for panzanella

Refreshing 3 heels of rock hard bread to soften enough to make a bread pudding. You can see how and the recipe I adapted here. Baked in the oven as I made double.