Small scale chicken soup

[Inglonias]

As we speak, a huge pot of homemade chicken soup is sitting on the stove, performing osmosis for my family's dinner.

This got me to thinking: Is it possible to have homemade chicken soup on a small scale? Does anybody have a recipe that makes only a small amount of chicken soup?

[PAstrychef]

The best way to to this is to start with chicken stock-either home made or from a carton, and cook a moderate amount of chicken in it, then add the garnishments and vegetables you like.
For a quart or so of stock, two thighs and a breast with their bones would be enough.

[poxic]

You can make the usual amount of soup and freeze most of it in single-serving containers. Or you can make the components -- cook the broth, brown the chicken, chop the veggies -- and freeze those in ways that allow you to remove the amount needed to cook yourself a bowlful.

The latter is how I sometimes do the stir-fry thing, minus the freezing part. I chop all the vegs and put them in separate airtight containers, then into the fridge. When it's food time, I fry up the oil and spices and choose bits from the various containers. Depending on the starting freshness of the veggies, I can keep this going for up to five nights in a row. Fresh stir-fry every time!

I should try this with frozen bits one day and see how that works. I imagine it's a tradeoff between longer keepage in the freezer vs. no freezer burn in the fridge.

[PAstrychef]

To wander away from the topic, freezing many vegetables leads to mushy, watery vegetables once thawed. They have so much water in their cells that when the ice ruptures the cell walls, collapse is inevitable. If you plan to fry them, freezing is counter-indicated.

[AvatarIII]

is there a reason that the recipe can't just be scaled down?

and as far as freezing veg is concerned, in my experience peas (and I'd assume other pulses would be ok too) do alright, root veg does alright too, but anything leafy or succulent doesn't

[Inglonias]

is there a reason that the recipe can't just be scaled down?

and as far as freezing veg is concerned, in my experience peas (and I'd assume other pulses would be ok too) do alright, root veg does alright too, but anything leafy or succulent doesn't

Generally speaking, in my experience, chickens come in a certain size. Using less vegetables is fine, but there is no way that I know of to use less of the chicken. I suppose I could eat some of the chicken outside of the soup, but I don't know how that would work.

[PAstrychef]

The amazing thing about a chicken, even if you can't buy already cut up chicken in your markets, is that they are easily dismembered. Then you can do different things with different parts. They are also much, much cheaper to buy whole and butcher yourself. There are videos showing how to do this on the You Tubes, also at various cooking sites like epicurious.com.
I buy whole chickens and break them down and save various parts for chicken stock, which I make three or four times a year and freeze in quarts. Chemical free and contained in the cost of the chicken, so almost free itself.

[AvatarIII]

is there a reason that the recipe can't just be scaled down?

and as far as freezing veg is concerned, in my experience peas (and I'd assume other pulses would be ok too) do alright, root veg does alright too, but anything leafy or succulent doesn't

Generally speaking, in my experience, chickens come in a certain size. Using less vegetables is fine, but there is no way that I know of to use less of the chicken. I suppose I could eat some of the chicken outside of the soup, but I don't know how that would work.

You can buy less than a whole chicken at a time you know. Also, I can think of plenty of ways to use left over chicken anyway, sandwiches, barbecue, curry, in a white sauce, kebab, omelette, I could probably go on, but I'm lazy.

[Izawwlgood]

Out of curiosity, do people find making their stock from scratch is superior to using bouillon or paste?

[Bhelliom]

I like making my own chicken stock. Collect the carcasses from a few chicken dinners, toss in some carrots, celery, black pepper corns, garlic.....It smells so delicious when you are making it, and you get to use parts of the chicken you would otherwise throw away. It does produce a different flavor from store bought stock, what with the lack of all the salt and preservatives, but is still delicious in it's own way. Most of my recipes call for 2 cups of stock or more, so I freeze my stock in Ziploc bags 2 cups at a time.

[poxic]

Thanks for the tip about frozen veggies, PAstrychef.

While I'm thinking about it: when cutting recipes in half, try using 2/3 as much of the spices and herbs as the original recipe, rather than 1/2. There's some sort of algebraic relationship between food volume and spice/herb ratio that I haven't yet worked out, but simply using 1/2 as much leads to a weak-tasting result.

Edittoadd: this also means that when doubling a recipe, start by adding only 1.5 times as much spice/herb.

[cerbie]

For a quart or so of stock, two thighs and a breast with their bones would be enough.

As an addendum: if you take home any store or restaurant chicken, boil your bones and bits for just a few minutes, instead of throwing them away, skim anything that come to the surface (leftover fry oil, seasonings, etc.), drain, and then make a quick broth as if they were from raw or stewed chicken. Then, you can easily use the lazy-friendly boneless chicken parts when making soup at a later date (can or freeze the broth, if not making soup soon).

[Bakemaster]

It's not chicken soup, but I've always very much liked Rachael Ray's recipe for a quick version of a beef stew:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rach ... index.html

Made it several times, always delicious. Never got it down to 30 minutes, but it's easy enough to make in under 60.