Grandma’s Chicken Soup

Everyone’s Jewish grandmother made chicken soup.

Almost every culture has a version of chicken soup. I’ve eaten, and made, lots of them and they’re all delicious, but there’s a certain taste that defines a chicken soup as Jewish Chicken Soup. It has as much to do with the spices and herbs that we don’t use as it does with those that we do use. That said, every Jewish grandmother (and every Jewish cook who isn’t a grandmother) has their own twists that they will swear makes theirs the best.

Of course, they’re all right.

My great-grandmother must have had to make some alterations to her cooking once they came to America, when my grandmother was twelve. Methods change over the years. My mother remembers watching her mother pluck the feathers from the freshly killed chickens when she was small—a very different experience from driving to the supermarket. Still, according to my grandmother, she made chicken soup exactly the way her mother had taught her.

From the time I was tall enough to see into the pot on the stove, I watched my Grandmother make her soup. There was never an actual recipe. Over the years I learned what it should look like, smell like, and taste like, picking up little tips and tricks along the way. I wan’t learning a recipe; I was absorbing “chicken soup consciousness.”

Of course, her tricks make this the very best Jewish Chicken Soup!

It took some trial and error to convert my knowledge into a recipe that could be written down for posterity. It’s not an exact science—vegetables vary in size, chickens vary in meatiness…that sort of thing—follow your instincts and each time you make it it will be even better than the last.

Here are a few tips and tricks that I picked up from my grandmother. I know she’d be happy that I’m sharing them with you.

— Save some of the onion skin and add it to the soup because it will deepen the color…but too much will make the soup bitter.

— Adding one or two chicken feet to the soup will make it a bit thicker and richer in flavor. The collagen in them will cause the soup to gel when chilled.

— Her secret ingredient was to add pinch of sugar—not enough to be detectable. While that might sound strange, trust me. It makes a huge difference, adding, as the French would say, that “je ne sais quoi.”

— She also used either half of a small turnip or half of a parsnip.

— And grandma always used dill and a bay leaf, along with the flat-leaf parsley.

And now, as a Jewish Grandmother, I accept my solemn duty to pick up the torch and carry it to the next generation.

But first, a rhetorical question…

What’s Jewish Chicken Soup without Matzo Balls?

Click here for the recipe for the World’s Best Matzo Balls

Grandma’s Jewish Chicken Soup

Chicken soup from scratch is actually very easy to make. The key to getting every molecule of deliciousness out of the chicken and the vegetables and into the soup is to go low and slow. The soup should be cooked over low heat, kept to a very gentle simmer with only a few bubbles popping up on the surface, for no less than 3 hours. But with that said, the whole thing requires little prep time. Once you’ve gathered the ingredients and tossed them all into the pot, all you have to do is keep an eye on it every now and then. Bear in mind that the vegetables are going to be tossed out at the end, so there’s no need to cut them nicely. Just whack them into chunks with your chef’s knife and you’re good to go.

Ingredients:

  • 1 large stewing chicken cut in half, plus the giblets (but not the liver)

  • 3-4 lbs chicken backs, necks, and wings (backs and necks are sold cheap by kosher butchers)

  • 1 or two chicken feet

  • 8 (preferably organic—they are sweeter) carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

  • 3 medium yellow onions, cut into chunks) with the skin of one of them reserved

  • A small parsnip (about 5”) or a small turnip, peeled and cut into chunks

  • 3 stalks celery, cut into chunks, plus their leaves

  • 2 bay leaves

  • A small handful of flat-leaf parsley sprigs

  • A small handful of dill sprigs, plus more for serving

  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed with the flat side of a chef’s knife

  • 15 peppercorns

  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt (to start)

  • 1 teaspoon sugar

  • Optional: 1 ounce dried mushrooms

Method:

  • Put all ingredients into a large stock pot and add fresh cold water to cover. Bring to a slow boil, then lower the heat. During the early stages of cooking, some nasty looking foam will develop on the surface. Skim off as much of this as you can. Gently simmer for about 3 hours, uncovered, until the meat is falling from the bones.

  • Taste the soup and add more salt if necessary.

  • Allow the soup to cool and then strain and refrigerate. There’s not much point in keeping the meat or the vegetables from the soup—at this point they’ve given all their flavor to the broth and won’t have much taste.

  • It’s best to make the soup at least one day in advance of serving. When it’s chilled, the fat from the skin will rise to the surface and solidify, making it easy to remove. That said, you should let a bit of the fat to remain, for taste.

  • The soup can be made a few days in advance and kept refrigerated, or even further in advance and frozen for up to 3 months.

  • At serving time, you can add some freshly peeled and sliced or diced carrots and/or celery,. They’ll cook as the soup reheats. This is also the time to add fine noodles, small pasta shapes, and/or matzo balls if you choose to do so. If you want to turn this into a complete meal, add all of the above and a generous amount of shredded or cut up, freshly cooked chicken. (Leftover rotisserie chicken works great here.) Serve it with a salad and a loaf of good bread.

  • Taste the broth. Non-chefs often make the mistake of under-salting. If it tastes flat, it probably needs more.

  • Snip some fresh dill into each bowl as you bring them to the table.

    Variation: To make egg drop soup, beat an egg (or more) in a small bowl until frothy. Stir the simmering soup to create a vortex, then tip the egg from the bowl into the vortex, while continuing to stir.