Chicken Soup

This soup is among the most famous dishes, you can find it almost everywhere in the world. It has a lot of versions, depending on where you are.

In My Grandmothers Era

I guess it's safe to say this was and still is a festive dish. Back in those days they only had chicken soup on Sunday, holidays and festive occasions, often at weddings. There was a standard that needed to be respected if you wanted others appreciation as a cook and/or housewife.

They said the chicken soup is good only if the color of the soup is like gold, in other words, it's yellow. You could only get that color if you cooked the whole chicken with the skin, and the fat of the chicken gave that color to the soup. Yes, that's right, on the surface of the soup the needed to be a thick layer of fat, otherwise they say it wasn't good.

The noodle used needed to be homemade, they could not imagine otherwise. In those days there were no noodles in the shops or not accessible to everyone, so they made noodles at home. Both my grandmothers were making noodles at the old age as well as that was what they got used to. I still remember them rolling out the dough, slicing with a big knife and then drying it for a day.

Cooking was a must for every woman, if you could not cook, you were considered useless and labeled by the community. Those were tough times :)

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken legs
• 4 big carrots,
• 2 medium parsley roots,
• 2 medium potatoes,
• 1 slice of celery,
• 1 medium onion,
• 2 coves garlic,
• noodles,
• salt,
• pepper.

I'm using chicken legs lately as that's more convenient for me but you can use almost any part of the chicken or rooster. I'm never using the chicken feet and head though.

The Process

First cook the chicken drums for about 10 minutes to avoid getting unwanted foam in your soup. Wash the chicken drums, add to the soup pot along with the pealed and chopped vegetables. Add salt and pepper, cold water to cover and cook at a slow heat till everything is tender. This is going to take around 2 hours but it's necessary.

When it's done, take out the chicken drums and vegetables and filter the soup.

Noodles can be of many types and it's up to you what kind you're using. Today I chose these long, not exactly thin noodles. So add the noodles and cook for 4 - 5 minutes, respecting the instructions on the package.

Serving Tips

You can serve the soup with noodles only.

Or you can add vegetables (carrot, potato) and chicken drums.

Many people like it with chili pepper or ground pepper. That can be added before serving.

Today, Compared To My Grandmothers Era

Times have changed a lot and these days you can find all kinds of chicken soups, varying from region to region and you can even find fake ones. Some people are selling a so called "soup" made of dried vegetable, water, salt and noodles. Soups like that has nothing to do with chicken soup and are a shame to the culinary world.

I've had chicken soup in my country and abroad as well. Most of these soups were good. The biggest disappointment happened in Hungary, where I was attending a business meeting and was a special guest along with other 9 people. As special guests, we were invited to a festive lunch, where the menu was the same for everyone, chosen by the organizers.

The soup was obviously chicken soup, but not the kind of we were used to. We got a big ball of soup with one (1) tiny quail egg floating in it. As I said, this dish varies from region to region but I've never seen or heard of serving only the soup, without adding noodles or vegetables. Now I know and ask before I order.

I love this soup as it's delicious and you can never go wrong with it. Noodles are on my to do list, I guess when I'll have plenty of free time I'm going to make needles.