Chicken Soup – The Jewish Penicillin – recommended once a week, and when there’s a “cold” threatening…

I’ve grown up on a chicken soup. My grandmother used to make it every Friday night, and on every sign of a cold (one sneeze – and she would run to the kitchen and start cleaning the chicken). I also read once that American doctors refer to it as

The bottom line is that I love chicken soup, we eat it at least once a week, and by now my brain is so programmed, that on the first sign of a cold – I run to the kitchen to make it. I started giving it to my son since he was a baby (please advice the books on to from which age you can start – I don’t really remember from which month it’s allowed). As a baby I mainly gave him the clear soup itself to drink (it contains all the good things…) and later on mashed the vegetables and chicken.  

So, here’s my recipe, and I hope you’ll enjoy it:  

Ingredients:

Chicken parts - I usually use only the legs and the thighs. They are tendereran the rest of the parts.

Vegetables – I use onion, garlic (lots!), celery, potato, pumpkin, and carrot. You can add other vegetables that you like.

Herbs and spices – salt, parsley, dill Water

And…. NO CHICKEN STOCK! This is a healthy, natural and so yummy soup!  

The first thing is to clean the chicken. I take off the skin (chicken skin contains all the chemicals that was injected to the chicken, and all the “bad things” the chicken had). I wash it under running cold water.

After that, I put all the chicken parts in a big pot full of water, and bring to boil.   While the chicken is in the pot, I wash and peel the potatoes. I do not peel the carrot but that’s up to you. I like to cut the vegetables to big pieces, but if your child “doesn’t like vegetables” try to cut them to really small ones.

Oh yes – after cutting the potatoes I place them in bowl full of water. If I won’t do that, they will go brown after 5 minutes.  

Meanwhile the chicken in the pot is already boiling. I reduce the heat to medium, and I start cleaning the top of the water (yes I know there’s a word for it, but I forgot it). You take a big spoon, and start taking off all the dirt on top of the water. When the water is more or less clear – I add the vegetables and the herbs and spices.

Please note that salt should be added in very small quantities. The vegetables themselves have natural salt and so does the chicken. When I made this soup for my son when he was a baby – I did not add salt at all.  

I bring it back to boil, reduce again to medium, and cook for another 30-60 minutes (depends how tender you want everything to be).   And that’s it!  

Oh yes, from this soup you can create your own “no preservatives” chicken stock – just strain the soup water through a fine strainer – put the clean soup water in a bottle and store it in the fridge. You can use this “chicken stock” to flavor any dish you want!