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photo by ROMNEY CARUSO

Chicken Soup for the Bowl

by DAVID W. BROWN

from vegetables and herbs and build a specific flavor profile, but it doesn’t require much if you are looking to keep it simple.”The ingredients for a very basic chicken soup, he says, include diced onions, carrots and celery; fresh parsley; chicken meat from, for example, a rotisserie chicken; and chicken broth. Let the ingre- dients simmer in the broth until the vegetables are tender. And that’s it! For chicken noodle soup, you can use egg noodles or even spaghetti noodles broken into small pieces. For a very consistent, evenly cooked soup, Ardoin suggests cutting vegetables a uniform size. This prevents a crunchy-chewy roller coaster with every spoonful. Because carrots take the longest to tenderize, give them a five-minute head start in the boiling broth before adding the chicken and other ingredients. If you are using noodles, give them an extra five minutes to simmer and soften. “Don’t be afraid to use salt, but don’t put it in at the beginning,” he says. “Wait until you get closer to the end because, otherwise, when the soup reduces down it might have too much salinity.” Likewise, don’t be stingy on the seasoning. “I know we aren’t afraid to season our food down here!” he adds.

DO YOU HAVE THE FLU? SINUS INFECTION? MINOR COLD? BROKEN LEG? YOU PROBABLY JUST NEED SOME CHICKEN SOUP. Maybe some rest, but definitely chicken soup. (Do not even think about wasting your time on something like tomato soup, which is a mere placebo at best. Gazpacho will likely cause instant death.) Chicken soup holds a universal place in human health and well-being as the ultimate culinary cure. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Chicken soup, on the other hand, can replace doctors entirely. The staple soup crosses cultures, creeds, borders and backgrounds. Though prepared a little differently at every longitude and lati- tude, chicken soup might be the only thing all the peoples of the world can agree on. It’s like the United Nations of food. The Sudafed people must really hate chickens and their delicious miracle broth. “How you prepare it depends on where you are from,” says Marc Ardoin, corporate chef for Rouses Markets. Every cook has his or her own way of making chicken soup, but the primary ingredi- ents are always the same: chicken, broth, veggies and heat. “There are so many ways you can make it. You can add your own flavors

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