This recipe is for chicken soup made using a plucked chicken without the feet attached. Some people say that you need chicken feet to make the kind of chicken soup that will cure a sick person of a cold or the flu. If Aunt Annie added chicken feet to her stock, she'd make sure the chicken's feet were clean.
Day One
Wash the chicken.
Marilyn's Aunt Annie used to scrub her raw chickens with soap, water, and a brush.
She said, "You never know where a chicken has been!"
In the late 1930s, Marilyn's granny, Isabel, would take her on a long streetcar ride to the west end of Toronto to visit Aunt Annie. They'd stay for dinner. Granny's daughter Julia (called Isabel because she disliked the name Julia) sometimes came along. This time, Aunt Annie gave the teen-aged Isabel some money and sent her walking to the butcher shop to buy a chicken for dinner.
When Isabel returned, Aunt Annie scrubbed and examined the chicken, then declared the chicken had a broken leg. She said the butcher had no business charging full price for a chicken that had probably wandered into the road and been run over by a truck! She told Isabel to take the chicken back and get another one.
Isabel didn't want to go. She said it would be too embarrassing. Aunt Annie marched Isabel back to the butcher shop.
My mother Marilyn, a little girl at the time, still remembers laughing with Granny about Aunt Annie, Isabel and the chicken. Eighty years later, she still thinks of it when she takes a raw chicken out of the package.
Granny sometimes bought butchered chickens with the feathers still on, because they were less expensive. My mom would sit with her grandmother in the dirt-floored basement of the house Granny's husband had built on Aldwych Avenue, and pluck the chickens. After Granny pulled out the feathers, she'd pass the chickens to Marilyn to pluck out the stubs with tweezers, a tedious job.
When Isabel got a little older and was marrying her "too-thirsty" boyfriend Johnny, Granny and Marilyn plucked a lot of chickens in the basement for the wedding dinner.
- After washing the plucked chicken, remove the bag of giblets.
- Simmer the giblets in a separate pot for gravy, or to cook, chop and mix with dog food as a treat for your dog.
- Cut the chicken into pieces.*
- Place all pieces in a large stock pot.
- Add water to cover.
- Add 2 dry bay leaves and 1Tbsp salt.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 1-1/2 hours.
- When chicken is cooked through and meat is soft, remove meat from the pot with a slotted spoon.
- Serve the cooked meat for dinner, or remove from bones and use to make chicken wraps or salads.
- Set cooked backs and neck aside till cool, remove meat from bones and refrigerate.
- Pour liquid from the chicken into a large container and refrigerate.
*Remove the skin now if not serving the chicken pieces for dinner and you'll have less fat to skim off the broth.
Day Two: Stock to Soup
- Skim the fat from the top of the refrigerated container of liquid.
- Use the fat instead of shortening or butter to make biscuits to serve with the soup. Or freeze and use when frying at lower temperatures (has a similar smoke point to butter.)
- Pour remaining chicken stock into a pot and reheat.
- If stock is too concentrated, add a cup or more of water.
- For chicken with rice soup, add a handful of rice.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium.
- Meanwhile, remove any skin from the refrigerated cooked back and neck pieces.
- Take the meat from the bones and chop finely. Discard skin and bones.
- Add the cooked, chopped meat to the stock.
- Add peeled, diced potatoes or rice and diced carrot.
- If not using potatoes or rice, add a handful of dry, broken noodles.
- Bring the soup back to a boil, add herbs*, then simmer on low till done.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
*Adding dried herbs to the broth when you add your salt and pepper will add flavour to a broth that tastes too watery. I like to use a generous tablespoon of thyme, and Italian herbs like basil and oregano are good for minestrone. In addition to adding flavour, thyme is an anti-inflammatory herb and can help with digestive issues and cold symptoms too.
