Slow Cooker Chicken Stock and Leftover Chicken Soup

This is really 2 recipes. I’m a firm believer that you should always make stock out of a roast chicken carcass, and it’s really easy if you have a slow cooker. The soup recipe that accompanies this is intended to be pretty customisable to fit whatever you have in the house. This verson has a minestrone sort of feel to it. Serve topped with grated parmesan with ciabatta or French bread drizzled with some olive oil

Chicken Stock Ingredients

Carcass of 1 roast chicken
2 onions, peeled and halved
2 carrots, peeled and halved
2 celery sticks (optional)
2 bay leaves
2 tsp black peppercorns

Strip all remaining meat from the bones (you can use these little bits in your soup.)

Using a big knife or meat cleaver, break as many of the bones as you can. This can get a bit grisly.

Transfer the bones, vegetables and other flavourings into the slow cooker. Fill the slow cooker with boiling water and cook on LOW for 12-16 hours.

Strain the resultant mixture through the finest sieve you have (cloth is even better), and skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

That’s your stock good to go!

Leftover Chicken Soup Ingredients

1 diced onion
1 small diced leek
Half tsp dried thyme
Half tsp dried oregano
2 small diced carrots
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 red chilli, sliced into fine rings
Your chicken stock and the chicken you stripped off the carcass
2tsp tomato puree
60g small pasta like macaroni or bits of broken spaghetti
1 tin butter beans (or any beans)
handful shredded cabbage

Soften the onion, leek, herbs, chilli and carrots in a little oil for 10-15 minutes

Add the garlic, cook for a further couple of minutes before adding your stock and tomato puree.

Bring to a simmer and cook for another 5 or 10 minutes.

Add the pasta, and simmer for 5 minutes

Add your cabbage, beans and chicken and cook until the cabbage is cooked how you like it and everything else is heated through. Season to taste.

Mexican Black Bean Soup

I made this tonight and it worked, which is especially nice as I pretty much made this up as I went along. It's a great soup for winter. You could serve this with tortilla chips, guacamole or sour cream and some lime wedges.

Ingredients
2 red peppers or 1 red and 1 green if you prefer
2 red onions, cut into wedges
1tsp ground cumin
1 handful coriander stalks
2 cloves garlic
2 chipotle chillies or 2 tsp chipotle paste
1tbsp tomato puree
2 veg stock cubes
4 cans black beans

Put the peppers on a tray in the oven on a fairly high heat until the skins are loose. Peel them and remove the seeds.

Put the peppers and everything else bar the stock cubes and the beans into a food processor with a splash of oil and blend into a paste.

Cook the paste through in your soup pot over a low heat for 5 minutes or so.

Add your beans, the stock cubes and cover with water.

Simmer until the beans start to disintegrate. Help them along a bit with a potato masher or a few whizzes from a hand blender.

Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste.

Roasted Parsnip and Ginger Soup

I’ve made parsnip and ginger soup in the past, and it’s been dreadful if I’m honest, especially one that used boiled parsnip and powdered ginger. I worked this recipe out through trial and error and I’m pretty proud of it. Make sure you don’t get too much colour on the veg when you roast them, you’ll get hard bits that won’t blend.

Ingredients

4-6 biggish parsnips
1 smallish white turnip
2 carrots
1 or 2 tbsp honey
2 medium white or brown onions
thumb-sized piece root ginger, grated
1 baking potato, thinly sliced
2 vegetable stock cubes

Peel and chop the parsnips, carrots and turnips into large dice. Put them on a baking tray, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the honey and a little oil. Roast on gas mark 3 for 45 minutes.

Slice the onions roughly and soften with the ginger and a little oil for 10mins. Add your roasted veg and raw potato to the soup and cover with boiling water. Chuck in the stock cubes too.

Simmer until everything’s soft (15-20 minutes), and blend with a hand blender. Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste (I like it laced with huge amounts of black pepper.)

Leek and Potato

I think my recipe for this soup is pretty standard. It’s one of my favourites though and it’s super super easy so I’ll post it anyway in case you’ve never made it. Serve with crusty bread rolls and mature cheddar.

Ingredients

2 sliced onions
2 diced carrots
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
4-500g sliced leeks
4-500g diced potato

Soften the leeks, onions, carrots and bay leaves in a little oil for 15 mins.

Add the potato, stock cubes and about 1.5l boiling water (you may need to add some more later).

Simmer until everything’s soft (15-25mins depending on how small everything’s cut)

Retrieve the bay leaf and blend with a hand blender. Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste.

Chicken Noodle Soup

I love this one. It works well with the little bits of meat salvaged from a chicken carcass and homemade stock (coming soon!). This soup is a great hangover cure, starter, or light lunch. You can make a vegetarian version by substituting the chicken stock for veg stock and the chicken for tofu, or another vegetable.

Ingredients

1.3l chicken stock
 3 slightly crushed garlic cloves
3cm piece sliced root ginger
2 ‘slabs’ egg noodles
large handful thinly sliced mushrooms
handful shredded cooked chicken
2 pak choi, leaves separated, or 2 large handfuls spinach
4 spring onions, cut into rings
1 large red chilli, cut into rings
dark soy sauce
sesame oil (optional)

Simmer the garlic and ginger in the stock for 15 minutes. Strain the stock and return to the pan.

Add the mushrooms, chicken and noodles, and simmer until they’re cooked. Steam the pak choi or spinach in a sieve over the broth.

Dish out the noodles, chicken, mushrooms and pak choi/spinach into 4 bowls, along with a sliced spring onion and a few slices of chilli.

Add soy sauce to the broth to taste, then ladle it over the bowls. Top with a few drops of sesame oil if you like.

Chipotle Bonfire Soup

This isn’t for the faint hearted, as it’s pretty fiery (hence the name). Chipotles are basically smoked chillies, and they add a really deep smoky flavour. You’ll notice a lot of the soups I post at the moment are quite similar, and that’s because when it’s cold outside I crave nothing more than a bowl of something orange and spicy. I really like this recipe as you can put everything in the oven, and forget about it while your house starts to smell amazing, then just simmer and blend it all at the end. It’s a lot easier to get the skin off the peppers if you have a blowtorch, but you can use the hob.

Ingredients

2 small sweet potatoes
1 butternut squash
4 red peppers
2 medium red onions
1 bulb (not clove!) garlic
2 jalapeno peppers
2 whole chipotle chillies
2 bay leaves
1 tsp cumin
1tsp paprika
2 vegetable stock cubes

Slice the butternut squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place on a large baking tray and spread the cumin and paprika over the flesh. Place one jalapeno, one bay leaf, and one chipotle in the hollowed out section of each squash half.

Add the onions, garlic bulb, sweet potatoes and the red peppers to the baking tray and drizzle everything with oil. Roast the ingredients for an hour at gas mark 3.

When everything’s gone soft, remove the skins from the onions, peppers, sweet potatoes and squash and transfer the flesh to your soup pot. Squeeze the innards out of the jalapenos and garlic bulb, and add to the pot.

Chuck the stock cubes, bay leaves and chipotle chillies in the pot and cover everything with boiling water. Simmer on a low heat with a lid for 15-20mins until everything’s starting to fall apart.

Fish out the bay leaves and chipotles and blend everything with a hand blender. Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste.

Slow Cooker Beef and Brown Ale Soup

I made a really good thing today with pork and cider which, while not technicaly soup, I will probably post when I can be bothered to write it up. But until then, here's another classic meat and booze combo that's a great soup for winter, making a cheap cut go a long way. I use Newcastle Brown for this soup. You could easily cook this on a hob, just cook it for 1 and a half to 2 hours on a low heat.

Ingredients

300g stewing steak, cut into little pieces
2 diced onions
1 tbsp seasoned flour
About half a pint of brown ale or stout
1 and a half beef stock cubes
2-3 tbsp pearl barley
100g thinly sliced mushrooms
1 large diced baking potato or swede if you prefer
2 diced carrots
2 tsp mixed herbs
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1tsp wholegrain mustard

Coat the steak in the flour and brown in a hot pan with the onions and some oil.

Transfer to the slow cooker with everything else.

Cover with boiling water and cook on LOW for 12-14 hours

Adjust seasoning to taste, remove the bay leaves and serve with crusty bread, your favourite cheese and more beer.

A new direction - Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

I am going to stop trying to write a blog and stick to what I know. I am going to post soup recipes. As and when I make them but probably once a week. I'd explain more, but we all know what's going on here.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

A creation combining my own recipe for curry powder and my love of sweet potatoes and squash in soup. It takes a little while and might seem complex but it's surprisingly straightforward and therapeutic. To avoid the fiddly process of taking the cardamom and cloves out of your soup, try putting them in an emptied and resealed tea bag. It proved a nice winter soup which I'd serve with warm naan bread.

Ingredients:
2 small sweet potatoes
1 butternut squash
2 medium red onions
2 carrots
4 long thin green chillies
2 crushed garlic cloves
1tbsp grated root ginger
1 tsp of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cinnamon, paprika, turmeric and black pepper
3 cloves
5 cardamom pods
1tbsp tomato puree
1 tin coconut milk
2 vegetable stock cubes
juice of a lemon

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place on a tray with the sweet potatoes and roast in a little oil at gas mark 3 for half an hour

Keeping the tubers in the oven, peel and roughly chop the onions, chillies and carrots. Place them in your soup pot with a little oil, and the cardamom and cloves and soften over a low heat for about 15 minutes.

Toast the coriander, cumin and mustard seeds in a dry pan for a minute before grinding them into a powder (you can use pre-powdered spices)

Add the spices, garlic and  ginger and cook for a minute or so before adding the tomato puree and coconut milk. Simmer for around 15-20mins on a very low heat.

While this is happening, remove the root veg from the oven (after they've had about an hour), and remove the skins. If needed, chop the flesh up a little.

Fish the cardamom and cloves out of your soup pot. Add the sweet potato and butternut squash to your curry mixture, and cover with boiling water (you may need to add more later). Throw in the stock cubes.

Simmer (covered) for around 20mins on a low heat until everything's soft. Blend using a hand blender, and adjust thickness and seasoning to taste. Stir in the lemon juice just before serving.