Chicken & Veg Soup
Ingredients
- onion
- clove of garlic
- celery
- leek
- carrot
- butternut pumpkin
- zucchini
- chicken stock
- chicken pieces or thigh fillets
- salt and pepper
Method
Chop the onion and garlic clove and saute in large saucepan until transparent. Add water to the saucepan. Chop and add all the vegetables. Add more water until vegetables are covered.
Add chicken stock, I usually use 1 teaspoon per cup of water. I use Massel stock as it has no MSG or preservatives.
Add chicken into the soup and once again make sure there is enough water to cover the vegetables and chicken.
Let the soup simmer for around 2 hours. I usually cook the soup for a couple of hours in the morning, then turn the heat off and let it sit for the rest of the day until dinner time, this just gives the flavour’s time to develop and it tastes much better than just cooking it and eating it straight away.
About one hour before dinner, remove the chicken from the soup and separate the chicken from the bones and put the meat back into the saucepan. I then use a potato masher and mash the soup a little so it isn’t too chunky, this is my preference but isn’t necessary if you don’t want to mash the soup.
Add salt and pepper to taste and let the soup simmer for a while before serving.
I haven’t used measurements for the vegetables or soup as I usually just add as many as I think necessary at the time. On average I might use one onion, one or two garlic cloves, a whole leek, a couple of celery stalks, one or two carrots, one zucchini and one butternut pumpkin.
Today I used 8 small chicken thigh fillets which was plenty.
Sometimes I will add potato, however being on the Dukan diet and potato isn’t allowed in the first two phases so this time I left out potato.
