The Contents of Greg Ingersoll's Brain

A day after I roasted a chicken, I read this post from Michael Ruhlman about roasting chicken and the general perceived inability of people to cook. Needless to say, I felt pretty good about myself. Yesterday, I turned the remains of that chicken into soup despite Ruhlman’s toungue-in-cheek warning not to bother to try to make stock.

The stock was fairly straightforward. Bones, carrots, onions, herbs, celery, water, heat. Lots of waiting. Some skimming. Finally straining, chilling, more skimming.

The soup was a similar process. It starts with chicken thighs. These are cheap, and a lot of the time they actually taste like something unlike chicken breasts. I just browned these for a few minutes to get some color and flavor (both thanks to the Maillard reaction).

I can hear you from here. “That’s not a non-stick pan! You’ll never get that clean!” You’d have a point if not for deglazing. Deglazing dissolves some of the stuck-on brown bits, and in this case it is perhaps the most fun part of the process. Just add a little cognac (remove from heat, be careful, I’m not responsible, keep a fire extinguisher handy, keep a pot lid handy, etc.), give it a second, and ignite. Igniting moves this from simple deglazing to flambéing, and if someone else had been in the kitchen at the time, I’m sure it would have been impressive.

Now the thighs (which aren’t completely cooked at this point) get removed and replaced with carrots, onions, and garlic. A brief sauté softens the vegetables and adds some color.

Once the vegetables have softened, I added a bit of flour and gave this a chance to cook. There was a fair amount of fat in the pan, and fat plus flour makes roux, a thickener. It ultimately didn’t do much in the finished product, so I probably didn’t use enough. The idea was to make the end result a bit less watery without making a stew or gravy out of it. (If you do want to make gravy: 1 Tbsp flour and 1 Tbsp butter is good for 1 c. liquid.) Always give the flour a chance to cook before adding liquid…which comes next.

Upon returning the thighs to the pot, I added some marjoram, the stock (plus enough water to cover), bay leaves, etc.

Once this all came to a boil, I reduced the heat to a simmer.

After a few minutes, the chicken is basically done, so it gets pulled out, boned, and chopped,

and rice takes its place in the pot for the next ten minutes or so.

Finally, the chicken goes back in for a minute, and the final product is put in a bowl.

Nothing to it. Some fresh bread would have been good with it. Maybe next time.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 13:38 and is filed under Cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.