A weeknight chicken and orzo soup
an almost one-pot dinner with your chicken broth
Hello! Happy hump day!
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Following up on last Friday’s post about four-hour chicken broth, here’s a short one on what you can do with it if you haven’t drank it all yet.
Before I write this I will ‘fess up and tell you that my preferred way of using that chicken broth is actually just straight up drinking it. As a broth. With the vegetables and meat.
But don’t worry - this is more delicious than any chicken soup you can get out there. Although, to be honest, I don’t even know where I would be able to get chicken soup. (Sorry, soup spoon, your soups are…)
Enter… a chicken orzo soup!
I want to talk about another of my 564 pet peeves. I hate, absolutely hate, detest, abhor eating crap for meals. Like. You know. Meals that have more grease than necessary, are void of greens or any nutrition, are overly processed. Sure, fast food is okay when the craving strikes, but I sure would like to sit down to a wholesome plate whenever I can. And I like making sure that my friends/family eat proper food. Although! I know this is just a me thing. Time starvation is real and sometimes fixing hunger is just what it is.
Moving on. Let’s talk about orzo/risoni. It is straight up hella delicious. I can’t get enough of its texture. I feel like it is rather forgiving on the overcooking scale. Even if you do slightly overcook it, it manages to retain the slightest bite and eats nice and slippery (probably because of its shape and how the grains are long enough to just slide across one another) and never clumps up. If yours is very clumped up, say a little prayer because only God can help you. Just kidding. It never happens. (Don’t quote me.)
I am going to provide a non-recipe recipe because cooking is intuitive and everyone has intuition on whether something needs more salt or not - I believe in you!!! Also this is almost not a recipe, so you can do it.
I was planning on making a chicken soup of sorts with my broth, so I didn’t bother straining it. Do not do the same unless you plan on doing the same. Please check that your chicken hasn’t turned chalky/mushy before you chill the whole thing! Otherwise it’s going to be a recipe for disaster.
On that note, a friend of mine who is a brilliant cook (I have not had the fortune of trying her cooking but some things you just know by looking) mentioned that she removes the meat at the 3-hour mark or so when boiling broth, then shreds it up, adds some schmaltz, seasons it with salt and has that atop rice or noodles! Definitely something to try. I just thought of something. If you have some ginger scallion sauce, imagine THAT atop. Heaven. It’s the perfect supper I could use in an hour’s time.
The non-recipe recipe
This takes about 20 minutes from start to end (if you don’t have to poach any chicken breast) and can feed 4-6, depending on how much vegetables/orzo/meat you add. If you are very hungry or just eat a lot (like me), this would be 2 portions.
Chuck your broth into a pot and heat till boiling.
Get another pot, bring water to a rolling boil, HEAVILY SEASON with salt (it should taste like the sea) and add your orzo. Orzo/risoni can be bought from Cold Storage or on Redmart. (I would insert a discount code but unfortunately Redmart doesn’t consider me anyone.) Follow the timing for al dente if you are going to drain it and have it on the side instead of adding into your broth, so everyone can decide how much orzo they would like. If you are going to add it into your broth, shave off a minute or two to make up for the time it will spend in the hot broth and the time it takes to get to the table/for everyone to start eating.
In the meantime, chop a bunch of vegetables that YOU like eating, to add in. Add in as much vegetables as you want, or as little. Something leafy and green that doesn’t take much time to cook would be perfect e.g. spinach (local/baby), chye sim (HK/baby), kale etc. Mushrooms would work too. I had swiss chard so that’s what I used. If you are using vegetables with hardy stems, be sure to separate the stems and leaves and add the stems to the broth first as they take longer to cook. I would not use cabbage. * If your choice of vegetable isn’t neutral-tasting (like chard that’s a bit sweet or mushrooms - earthy), just keep in mind that it will add its flavour to your soup.
At this point, because vegetables release water, re-season your soup to taste. Salt! Pepper! Lemon zest! Olive oil! Whatever you like! A dash of chili flakes! Turmeric! Fish sauce in a pinch!
If you chilled your meat with your broth, like me, it basically self-shreds. If not, shred your chicken (not too fine!) and add to the broth.
If you didn’t end up with any chicken left, poach your reserved chicken breast and shred before adding to the broth. Don’t kill me; I know I said this was a two-pot 20 min. sich. You can poach your chicken after cooking orzo in the same liquid, but it will take about 10-15 min. more, not including cooling time for shredding.
it practically belongs in the museum. Take a step back and admire what a great feat you’ve accomplished in 20 minutes (let’s just put the 4 hour simmering past us, ok?). AND if you managed this after a long day on a weeknight?! All hats off to you. Portion. Sit. Eat. Devour.
If you’re a little under the weather, adding ginger (julienned/sliced) to your broth once you’ve brought it up to a boil would be deeelish. Do simmer it for a bit to draw the flavour out. Finishing with a bit of sesame oil would be excellent.
There is one more chicken recipe coming up, which utilises some of that beautiful broth and is an interesting one I’m excited about!
I hope you have a lovely rest of the week.
Bisous!
M.