Canada’s own Monda Rosenberg retired as Food Editor of CHATELAINE, Canada’s largest circulation magazine, in 2009. She was responsible for the magazine’s entire award-winning Food section, including writing and recipe development of over 2,000 recipes a year and overseeing food photography. Before joining CHATELAINE, Monda Rosenberg was Food Editor of the Toronto Star for five years.
Monda has received an impressive number of food writing, styling and publishing awards including the Nabisco Food Writer’s Magazine Food Editor of the Year Award, the New York Art Directors Award for Food Styling and the General Foods Nutrition Writing Award. She has been president of the Ontario Home Economics Association and president of the Toronto Home Economics Association for a double term.
A frequent guest on national television and radio shows, Monda is the author of The New Chatelaine Cookbook, two Vitality Cookbooks, the Quickies series of 7 cookbooks and Chatelaine’s Wonder Foods.
It's true, chicken soup is magical. Touted as a cure-all for colds and flu, an antihistamine and hang-over cure, it has justifiable earned the "Jewish penicillin" moniker. Real-deal scientific studies keep reinforcing what caring babbas have known for generations. A pulmonary specialist at UCLA Medical School, for example, has even discovered an amino acid that is released as chicken simmers which resembles acetylcysteine, a drug used in cold medicines and prescribed for respiratory problems and bronchitis.
BONE-UP
Fortunately you don't have to be a Jewish grandmother to stew up a satisfying broth. Rich flavours come when chicken bones are started in cold water with salt and a few vegetables (an onion, carrot or two, a few bay leaves and peppercorns) then simmered away for 2 to 3 hours. When strained it looks unassuming, but nothing you find in a carton can match its complex deep taste. For a more precise recipe, check out the low sodium broth on this web site.
This is the kind of broth that makes a magnificent soup with just added pieces of chicken, a few chunky vegetables and scattering of noodles. But don't despair if broth making doesn't fit into your day timer. The cans, cartons and jars of broth stocked by most supermarkets make a reputable base for a gratifying chicken soup especially with all the interesting adds-ins we now use to gussy up soup.
WORLDLY SIPS
Ones first thoughts when chicken soup is mentioned usually have to do with what they were served as a child. For some it was either - noodle or cream of - straight from a red and white can. If you came from a "everything from scratch" household, it may have been a tough hen simmered for hours and then the shredded meat, carrots and potatoes thrown into the broth. If seasoned at all, it was probably just a sprig of thyme.
For those with Filipino roots, evaporated milk was added for richness. In Hungary, the whole heart and liver went in along with peppercorns. Dumplings were usual in Germany: lemons and eggs and sometimes small pasta in Greece and ginseng with dried jujube fruit in Korea.
Today chicken soups are on many menus but rarely billed just as an old-fashioned classic soup. They come with roots as diversified as Indian, Mexican, Thai, Tex-Mex, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chilean, Brazilian, etc.
Plain chicken broth takes on a different guise when you add coconut milk or miso paste, hot-garlic chili sauce or a lacing of sesame oil. I sometimes add soaked dried shiitake mushrooms, green onions, and shreds of chicken for the Asian route. I go through phases of my favourite dress-ups for the classic soups. Starting with broth these days I go rustic with big pieces of chicken, chickpeas, squash, leeks and cumin. My current favourite is a Madras version with curry, cumin, sweet potato and rice.
In the Chatelaine test kitchen we often found an excuse to make chicken soup, partly because we loved having leftovers in the freezer for lunches and partly because we know our readers always loved them and we got tremendous feedback. Goggle chicken soup on the Chatelaine website (www.chatelainerecipes.com) and 125 recipes pop up. Among the first in the list
French Country: The broth is spiked with big spoonfuls of Dijon mustard and a generous lacing of dried tarragon and dusting of nutmeg. Leeks also add to the French accent.
Italian Meatball: Ground chicken seasoned with basil and Parmesan are rolled into small meatballs, and then simmered away with chicken broth, tomatoes, fresh basil and Italian seasonings.
Hot and Sour: Inspired by the classic Thai soup, coconut milk is combined with chicken broth and flavoured with fish sauce and hot garlic chili sauce (all ingredients Thai lovers regularly stock in their pantry). Dried shiitaki mushrooms and bamboo shoots heighten the Asian experience.
Mexican: Green peppers (the least expensive of the bell peppers), jalapenos, corn niblets and lime juice give it that feisty south-of-the-border flavour.
Chicken Curry: Based on a can of cream of celery soup and everyday ingredients, you can have this number on the table in 10 minutes.
Classic Chicken Noodle: All that wholesome homemade flavour you expect from a lovingly made soup in under a half hour.
Chicken-and-coconut: A can of coconut with grated fresh ginger and lemongrass give it a distinctive character and a squirt of lime juice seems to wake up all the flavours.
So when you’re in the mood, a recipe to fit your current cravings is just a click away. I have listed Chatelaine recipes because I have made almost all on the website - but you must check out all the appealing soup recipes on this site. This is a must if you cook for youngsters. There are recipes that include whole wheat macaroni, peanut butter, tortillas, meatballs and noodles.
Just remember when you are thinking about “What’s for dinner?” or “What can I cook on the weekend to last for a few days?” a simple message I wrote at the beginning of one of my classic chicken soup recipes.
“Whether you have a nasty cold or had a tiring day, a big bowl of broth packed with chicken and oodles of filling noodles is guaranteed to make you feel better. It truly is a soup to soothe the soul!”
