Everything Under the Moon

I wanted to share this recipe because I loooove making this soup for myself and for other people ... it's quite easy, and it warms you right down to your bones. Not to mention the healing properties of chicken soup, and the magical associations of many of its ingredients ...

Ingredients

leftover cooked chicken, shredded (I typically make this soup after roasting a chicken, and just use those leftovers)
salt & pepper to taste
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, minced
2 stalks of celery, diced
6 cups homemade chicken stock (this I believe to be the key ingredient - it's chock full of nutrients, and no weird unpronounceable chemicals
2 cups of water
1 medium carrot, diced
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 cup long grain rice, cooked
4 large egg yolks
juice of 1 lemon (my boyfriend and I like a stronger lemon-y flavor so we use 2 lemons
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Preparation

In a large pot over medium high heat add oil. Add the onions and cook until the onions are translucent. Sautee carrot and celery as well. Add chicken stock and water and bring to a boil while the rice cooks.

Add the chicken, thyme, and rice. Cover and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the lemon juice and yolks together in a bowl. Whisking constantly, gradually ladle 1 cup of the hot soup into the egg mixture, then stir the egg mixture back into the soup. Reheat over low heat for 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with a garnish of fresh parsley.



And that's it! It makes a lot of soup, and I love giving it to friends when they're feeling down or ill. The lemon adds a really great twist to the flavor and perks you right up. The lemon represents love, happiness, and purification; the chicken represents health, healing, and nurturing; the rice represents earth and substance. A perfect healing soup!

It sounds delicious! I'll definitely make this so I can have it when I'm ill or my mother is. ^^

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Xiao, I made this soup yesterday for my fiance (He's sick right now ) and it came out really delicious.

He said that for now on when he gets sick, he knows what he wants me to make lol Thanks for posting your recipe!

And I really liked how you gave the magical associations of some of the ingredients.

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So glad you liked it! And I hope your fiance gets better soon ; )

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I like the lemon idea, never tried that in my homemade chicken soup before. With the lemon, this recipe kind of reminds me of sinigang soup (tamarind would be in the place of the lemon), one of my favorite Filipino dishes. Love the intentions behind the ingredients, too. Thanks Xiao.



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Oh Kass! That's one of my favorite dish too, next to Adobo. When and where did you taste/eat sinigang?

I always eat mine with a little fish sauce and mashed green finger chili for the coup de grace and then I pour a little broth over the rice to moisten it and mashing the taro and then cutting the meat and dipping it in the chili fish sauce before placing a spoonful in the mouth. Oh yum! You should try that!

I consider it my chicken soup, always comforting my tired soul, satisfying my craving.

Oh yum!

What you do with the egg yolks, I call it "tuning up" the soup and do it to every soup I make, but with 1 whole egg and 4 - 5 tablespoons of yogurt instead of lemon juice. It makes the soup a lot thicker and therefore nourishing

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I don't remember when or where I first ate sinigang Seraphin, unfortunately. Yes, it is a very satisfying dish, and I could see it having a kind of "chicken soup" comfort factor to it, especially during winter or rainy times. I'll have to try your suggestions.

I really go through my food phases. At one time, dim sum was my not-so-guilty pleasure. We used to take our family to dim sum frequently, the only non-Chinese eaters in the room, haha. Then, I discovered Thai food --oh, all the different toms (soups) --the green ones, the red ones, the yellow ones. And there were the Indian, Moroccan and Ethiopian phases, happily eating with my hands, mostly vegetarian dishes in those cuisines (except for Moroccan, which often features lamb). Lately, whenever I want to celebrate some accomplishment in my life, I award myself with a big bowl of Vietnamese pho, and dive in!

Ugh, I'm getting hungry.




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Funny that y'all brought this topic up again ... I made this recipe just two nights ago because Mr. Xiao was developing a sore throat.

The main changes since I posted this recipe over 2 years ago is that Mr. Xiao and I now make it a lemon chicken SPAETZLE soup ... spaetzle is a type of German egg pasta that's really easy to make and makes this yummy, chewy little dumpling. Here's what you do:

Spaetzle ingredients:

- 2.5 c. white flour
- 3/4 c. milk
- 3 eggs
- dash of salt (I eyeball it)
- 1 tsp white pepper
- dash of nutmeg (optional)

Measure out the flour, salt, and pepper into one bowl, and whisk together milk and eggs in another (I usually do this in the measuring cup I use to measure out the milk). Slowly pour egg mixture into the flour, whisking constantly, until all of the mixture has been incorporate. You should have a big, shaggy, mess. Cover it with saran wrap and refrigerate it, anywhere from 30 minutes until 1 day.

When you're ready to make the spaetzle, boil some water and get it to a nice, roiling boil. It's easiest to use a spaetzle maker for this part (super cheap -- I got mine for $10 on Amazon). You can also use a metal colander with large-ish holes. What you do is you spoon the dough into the spaetzle maker/colander while you hold it over the boiling water, and use a spoon or something to push the dough around. The dough will dribble through the holes into the boiling water, which is how you get little bite-sized nuggets of delicious spaetzle. When the spaetzle floats to the top, they are cooked through.

So now when I make this soup recipe, what I normally do is I prepare the spaetzle dough first. After that's in the fridge, I go about cutting carrots, celery, onion, etc. At the end of the soup-making process (or sometimes before I whisk in the eggs and lemon), I crank up the soup to a roiling boil, set up my spaetzle maker, and grate the spaetzle dough directly into the boiling soup. And then about a minute later I have lemon chicken spaetzle soup instead. This is our new favorite chicken soup variant!

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Funny you're bringing up spaetzle, because that was my next soup adventure, no kidding. I saw someone making it from scratch, and it looked fun, dropping the noodles into the boiling water (in this case the person used a cheese grater, lol). I thought to myself, I want to make some of that. So, it's been on my list ever since. Thanks for posting a recipe for it!



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Bump - yum