The Omnivorous Fish

The high holy days are upon us once again. What does this mean to me? Well, nothing, really, but it means something to the Agent and it’s an excuse to cook, so here we are. Monday was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and for some reason, you can’t eat and atone at the same time, so you fast from sundown to sundown. Afterwards, naturally, you break the fast- as soon as is humanly possible- traditionally with lots of carbs. The Agent’s experience has been that a broth type soup relaxes the contracted stomach and allows you to eat more easily after the fast. I don’t think I’ve ever gone twenty four hours without eating in my life, and I’m not about to start, so I’ll have to take his word for it.

Armed with this information, we started out with a Jewish riff on Pho, the traditional Vietnamese soup. We then moved on to a vegetarian fesenjan, which is a Persian-Jewish stew of duck or lamb with eggplant, cooked with pomegranate juice and walnuts. I used buttercup squash in lieu of meat (because originally we were going to have a vegetarian guest who bailed- the chicken soup was a last minute idea) and although the flavor worked, next time I would use pumpkin or hubbard squash, which I could trust to hold its shape more. We then had some cheese, because that’s what we do, and then my first noodle kugel, which by all accounts wasn’t bad. We had a succession of red wines, including the Luddite Vineyards Languid Duck, a complex wine with an interesting genesis. The loser of the evening was a beautifully made wine that we just didn’t like called Wolftrap, from Boekenhoutskloof, the old and intrepid producer from South Africa. The wine had everything, but it simply had too much fruit for its own good, however badly I wanted to enjoy it. Another disappointment was the “L’hiver” (winter) syrah from Copain’s ‘four seasons’ bottlings. It wasn’t bad, but it was merely fine, and did not have $20 worth of character.

Easy Soup
People think that soup needs to cook for hours and hours. I don’t know where this comes from, but it’s ridiculous. You can make this soup in less than an hour, and of that hour about 10 minutes are spent doing something. This makes a great chicken soup with the addition of noodles or rice or matzoh balls after the chicken has been removed. It makes a fantastic cold-night supper with some parsnips, carrots and pearl onions cooked in the broth, served with coarse salt, mustard and cornichons. It produces a perfectly cooked chicken for chicken salad or a picnic, with the byproduct of a delectable soup or savory stock.

1 chicken, 3 to 3-1/2 lbs
1 large carrot, split lengthwise
1 leek, split lengthwise and washed, each half tied with a string
3 white peppercorns
3 black peppercorns
1 allspice berry
1 large bay leaf
1 thick slice ginger, smashed (optional)
salt to taste

Rinse the chicken thoroughly inside and out and remove skin, excess fat and innards. Reserve for another use¹. If the chicken is to be served whole, truss it with string, or at least tie the legs together and set the wings akimbo. Place the chicken in a deep pot, not enormously wider than the chicken. Place half a carrot and half a leek on either side of it and cover with cold water by 1 to 2 inches. Place pot over high heat, uncovered, and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, crush peppercorns and allspice berry under the side of a knife or small pot.

While water is heating, gray foamy impurities will rise to the surface. Skim them carefully away with a skimmer or slotted spoon. Do this as needed until the heat is turned off.

When the pot comes to a boil, adjust heat so that it boils gently and cook for five minutes. When it seems that no more impurities are coming to the surface, add pepper (now called mignonette pepper), allspice, bay leaf and ginger. After five minutes, turn off heat, cover pot and leave undisturbed for forty-five minutes.

After forty five minutes, remove chicken from pot and place on a platter. If the chicken is to be used whole, skip ahead. If not, slice or hand-shred the chicken meat as soon as it is cool enough to handle. I usually skip the meat from the very ends of the legs and the very ends of the wings. That, along with the bones and cartilage, goes back into the pot with the broth and vegetables. Bring this to a gentle boil and cook for about five or ten minutes, skimming impurities and chasing fat² until you’re satisfied that it’s done.

Take the larger solids out of the pot and discard. Wet two or three thicknesses of paper towels and use them to line as fine a sieve as you have, preferably a conical chinois variety. Gently strain the stock into a clean saucepan. There should be about 8 cups, depending on the size of pot you started with. If there is much more, taste the broth. If it is very weak, you can boil it to concentrate it. Conversely, if it is very strong, it could be diluted.

If using for our Jewish Pho, salt the broth to taste and serve plain in bowls with some or all of the following condiments in bowls for people to make their own soup with: cooked rice noodles, mung beans or other sprouts, the chicken meat, cilantro leaves, lime wedges, hot sauce (like srihacha) and sliced scallions.

If using for soup, add salt to taste, vegetables as desired and pasta or rice. If using pasta, I recommend cooking it separately unless you are certain to use all of the soup right away. Although the broth benefits from the starch released by the pasta, the texture of the pasta degrades very quickly. Lastly, add the chicken to rewarm it and serve.

If using for a poached chicken, remove a small amount of broth before the chicken is ready to cook the vegetable garnishes, then serve hot when the chicken is ready. Serve in soup plates or shallow bowls with mustard, coarse salt and sour pickles, like cornichons, cherries, onions, horseradish, etc.

If using for stock, strain it into a container set in a larger container of ice and water, and stir stock occasionally to cool it as quickly as possible (to avoid bacterial growth). Chill and remove solidified fat.

¹ I’m not kidding, cut up the skin into 1/2” pieces and cook it in a pan until it’s brown and crunchy, and scatter it over split pea soup. The rendered fat is great for frying up that liver for a snack, or for frying potatoes. The gizzard is fantastic in gravy. Freeze them until you have a bunch of them.

² “Chasing” fat from a stock is running a ladle around the surface of stock, pushing the fat into a corner and scooping it out with the edge of the ladle, without wasting a drop of the precious liquid. It’s easier to chill the stock and take away the hardened fat, but if the broth is being used as soup, it benefits from a small amount of surface fat, besides, chasing can be done right away, without waiting for the stock to chill and reheat.