Jewish Penicillin
The nights are fair drawin' in. Forget your flu jab, this is all the medication you will need this winter; Jewish Penicillin. Chicken soup with matzo balls and noodles. This is Debbie's recipe, it's in two stages. First make the stock then finish the soup the following day...no runny noses this winter.
Soup ingredients:
Kosher boiling hen; split into breast and leg portions
1 large onion peeled, put in whole. It will break up in the cooking process
3 large carrots sliced
2 x Telma chicken cubes
Sea salt flakes and black pepper
Soup method:
Put chicken portions in pot with onion, fill with cold water then bring to the boil. As the water boils, skim all the scum off the surface, this will take some time. Add crumbled chicken cubes, making sure they dissolve, then pop in the sliced carrots. Cover and simmer for approx 2 hours on a low heat, stirring occasionally.
Let soup cool down, preferably overnight. Once completely cooled skim the fat from the surface. Tip; laying a couple of sheets of kitchen paper on top of your cold stock will absorb a great deal of the fat.
Remove chicken portions and reserve the meat for adding to your soup at serving, if you wish. Some strange people don’t like chicken flesh in their soup but then some peculiar folk don’t like chocolate.
Kneidlach ingredients:
2 free range corn fed chicken’s eggs
½ cup of each Matzo meal, fine and medium
2 soupspoons Tomor margarine
Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper
Kneidlach method:
Whisk the eggs with fork until thoroughly mixed. Add soft margarine, salt and pepper. If possible add a couple of spoons of chicken soup. Put mixture in fridge for an hour. Mixture should be firm enough to roll into small balls. Do this with damp hands. Either drop into simmering soup, or boiling water. They only need approx 5 mins. When ready they will float to the top.
Lokshen:
Egg noodle pasta like vermicelli or fine shapes such as little stars or alphabet pasta.
Cook as per manufacturer’s instructions, drain and reserve. Add to your soup bowl as you serve it.You may wish to sprinkle some chopped parsley and Osem mini croutons over before serving.
Recipe courtesy of Debbie Shear. Photo by Clair Irwin.
