My Grandma Chicken Soup

I have cooked and eaten this soup since my childhood. At first my grandma cooked it for us with home grown chickens. The taste of these chicken cannot be compared to the chicken we buy from the grocery stores, or even to the most expensive super organic versions one can find on the market. Nowadays, when I go back to Bulgaria, my mom cooks this soup for me and it still tastes amazing, the same as the one from my childhood memories.

Here is my version:

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 3 carrots, cut in small pieces, or shredded
• 1 cup, shredded celery head
• 1-2 potatoes cut in small pieces, or shredded
• 2 cubes chicken broth. Home-made chicken broth would be the best.
• 2-3 tbs olive oil
• salt, black pepper, cumin to taste
• 1/2 cup rice
• 1-2 eggs
• 1 tbs vinegar
• 1/2 cup parsley

PREPARATION:

Cover the chicken with water and boil it. Use a large spoon to remove residue floating on surface. This residue  will occur at first boil and decrease after you skim it for the first 15 minutes.   If you are bored to do this, just strain the broth to get a clean liquid.

Add the broth, salt, black pepper, cumin, a little bit olive oil. When it comes to boil add the celery and the carrots. You can change the quantity depending on your pot size and how thick you like the soup.

After the carrots get softer, add the potatoes. Take out the meat and cut it into bites.
Add the meat back to the soup, and add the rice.
When the rice and the potatoes are done turn off the heat and wait for the soup to cool off a little bit, for max 1/2 hour.
Meanwhile whisk the eggs with the vinegar. Slowly add soup liquid to the eggs mix and whisk. If you do this fast the soup will loose its smooth texture.
At the and add the parsley. You can add some fresh black pepper before serving.

Good appetite!

Spicy Stew with Leftover Chicken

The sumac chicken was tasty, but I cooked it in the middle of the week, so we could not finish it. I like using leftover chicken for stews or salads, especially when the chicken is roasted. The dish cooks faster and the chicken adds another layer of flavour, that is hard to accomplish if you start with raw meat.
The two beautifully roasted chicken breasts, nobody cared to have, were perfect for my spicy stew. A friend of mine cooked the stew for me few years ago, and I' ve been cooking it quite often since then. It is a very healthy and delicious meal. You can use whatever vegetables you have available, and play with different spices as well. My friend was recommending using exactly seven vegetables.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 zucchini
• 2 bell peppers - red and green
• 2 cups of cabbage
• 2 cups of mixed beans, chickpeas
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• 2-3 Thai chili peppers
• 2-3 potatoes, not pictured
• 2 cups cubed chicken 

  Spices:

• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/3 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp cumin
• salt to taste
• black or white pepper

Wash and chop your veggies. Try to make them equally sized. Start with sauteing the onions and the garlic. I usually add the salt and the rest of the spices to the onions, so I can extract most of the flavour. Then I add the carrots, the celery, the beans, the cabbage, the peppers, in order depending on the time required to cook. Add two cups of water and reduce the heat. When the carrots become soft, add the chicken, the zucchini, and the potatoes.

When the stew is ready, sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve the stew on top of couscous or quinoa.

Rated "R" for Vegetarians - Roasted Sumac Chicken

Sumac is the wonderful spice, we taste on the Middle Eastern kebabs. It is extracted from the berries of a bush that grows wild in the Mediterranean region, especially southern Italy and parts of the Middle East.
Often utilized in Arabic, Indian, and Lebanese cuisine as a rub on meats and kebabs, it can also be added to marinades, soups and stews, rice dishes, casseroles, salad dressings, dips, and many other dishes for additional elements of flavor. It can also simply be used on the table as a condiment to replace salt and pepper.
Sumac has antimicrobial and antioxidant activity.
The sumac spice was the inspiration for my roasted chicken. I used a whole, "hopefully" organic chicken, bought at Costco.

 

STEP 1: Defrost, wash, and pat dry the chicken with paper towels.
STEP 2: It is said that butterflying the chicken would allow more even and faster roasting. With the breast down, cut along each side of the backbone to remove it.

STEP3: Flatten the breastbone. Use your hands or a meat ponder to achieve fairly even thickness. Tuck the wings behind the back.

STEP 4: Rub the chicken with olive oil, salt, cumin, black pepper and sumac.

STEP 5: Peel couple of potatoes and cut them in 1/3 inch thick slices. Spread the potatoes in an even layer in the roasting pan. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pour 1 cup water. The juices and oil coming out of the chicken are enough to season the potatoes.

STEP 6: Preheat the oven to 500F. Put the pan on a middle low positioned rack and bake for 45-50 minutes. The temperature in the thickest part of the breast should be 160-165F and for the thighs should be 175F. The skin should be deep brown and crispy.

 

STEP 7: Transfer the chicken to a carving board and let it rest for 10 minutes. Carve the chicken and arrange on a plate with the roasted potatoes and sprikle with fresh parsley.

 The chicken was delightfully crisp and moist. The sumac added a lemony, favorable tart and tangy flavor.

Not So Sauerkraut With Chicken... minimalist style

A very quick inventory of the freezer a day ago had left me to believe that we had a lot of chicken thighs... well in reality there were only three. Several Sundays in a row now i try to cook larger batches of food so that we can take lunch to work, so having almost no chicken was in no way going to stop me. Also, I recalled that whenever we eat cabbage with chicken we always eat the cabbage preferentially, so I figured having less chicken to begin with will only make it easier in the long run. Boy was I right! :) However, there was another potential for things going wrong... I only had one jar of Safeway brand Sauerkraut and was a bit hesitant to use it. The label seemed totally legit, listing only cabbage, water and salt as the ingredients, but i've heard from other more experienced users that store bought sauerkraut could be pretty bad. To my surprise, this tasted pretty good. It was shredded, but still had a nice crunchiness to it and was sour enough without being too sour. Also, the juice tasted pretty fresh and there were no weird aromas or aftertastes. SO i figured I would just use it. But wait.. i only had one jar. Long story short, i combined the sauerkraut with fresh cabbage and it turned out quite delicious.





Here are the ingredients:
3 heads of fresh cabbage, sliced in the food processor (4 min total slicing time!!!)
1 onion, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
3 pieces of chicken thighs, cubed into ~2cm pieces
1 jar of Safeway brand Sauerkraut
3/4 cup white rice
salt, cumin and black, red, cayenne pepper to taste.

First saute onions + garlic + carrots over medium heat with 3 tsp olive oil. Then add the chicken and spices and cook about 10min:


Once the chicken is cooked, add the fresh cabbage (slightly salted) and cook until it is almost ready (~20min or so).


Once the cabbage is almost ready, add the sauerkraut (with the brine) and then the rice. Stir well and let cook for another 25 min, or until the rice is fully cooked. I recommend stirring every couple of minutes to avoid stuff burning at the bottom of the pot. Once ready, serve and enjoy with thin slices of home made Lukanka and "chorbadzhiiski chushleta"!