I am a real estate agent who caters to clients, as they say, “in entertainment.” This means that I move fussy, busy people from Hollywood to New York, and that my clients expect, even demand, me to be a cross between Ari Gold and Betty Crocker. It also means that I’m providing ancillary services on a ludicrously high level: I have FedExed leases to the set of an Oliver Stone movie, hung drapes for a client who was on the other coast doing Leno, and made homemade chicken soup for a panicked Broadway star with the sniffles.
I found the soup particularly challenging. Chocolate chip cookies are one of my standards, quick and easy enough to make while conducting a bidding war via bluetooth. Soup, on the other hand, takes hours, and is practically guaranteed to taste like dishwater if you don’t layer the flavors in. Adding some canned chicken broth speeds the process, but go too far, and you’re apt to erase the “homemade” essence that you’ve spent hours crafting.
Another legacy problem I had is that my cookbooks are mostly old. It may have been okay in 1961, as Craig Claiborne wrote in New York Times Cookbook
So here’s the secret to great chicken soup: use two chickens. Make stock with one, pull it out, chop the meat up for a chicken salad or give it to the cat. I don’t care, just don’t put it back in the soup. Before you protest that this is going to be a thirty-dollar chicken soup, remember that these are clients we’re feeding here. Or maybe they’re not clients; you may be making homemade chicken soup for a flu-ish spouse, or a sneezy kid. Whatever your motive, if you’re going to the trouble, spend the money.
Finally, while you’re shopping: I like tarragon instead of the traditional dill because I’m pretentious that way.
Impress Your Client Chicken Soup
1 3-lb. chicken, whole, innards removed, cut up into pieces
1 lb. boneless chicken meat, thighs or breast
3 carrots
3 ribs celery
1 medium parsnip
1 onion
Handful peppercorns
Pinch saffron
1 bay leaf
1 can (approx. 2 cups) “store-boughten” chicken broth – I use College Inn
Kosher salt
Ground pepper
Approx 3/4 c.egg noodles or smallish pasta (stars, orzo, etc.) or rice – goal is to make approx. 1 1/2 cups, cooked
Handful (maybe 2 tablespoons) tarragon, rinsed and chopped, or dill if you’re a traditionalist
Make a stock by placing the cut-up whole chicken on a stock pot with 2 roughly cut-up carrots, 1 rib celery, 1 quartered onion, 1 bay leaf, a handful of peppercorns, and a pinch of saffron, and adding water to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer for awhile, maybe an hour and a half. The mixture can be mostly ignored – I use this time to run listing searches for clients – but just check midway and add a cup or two of water if too much is boiling off. Meanwhile, make the pasta or rice in a separate pot in boiling water – cook it just to al dente, since it will cook more in the soup later – and drain.
Then, take the stock off heat. Discard everything that you can catch with a spider skimmer into a separate large mixing bowl – after this melange cools, you can pick the chicken off the bones for use in another meal. You should have maybe a quart and a half of stock left, which you can strain through a food mill or cheesecloth, or simply skim the fattiest part of the scum off the top. (If you have time, you can chill the stock for more effective skimming). Put the stock back in the pot, and add in 1 lb. chopped boneless chicken, 1 parsnip cut into quarters the long way, and then chopped, 1 carrot ditto, 2 ribs celery ditto, approx. 2 cups store-boughten chicken broth (for the salt), and a couple of tablespoons chopped tarragon or dill. Boil for fifteen minutes. Skim, add cooked pasta or rice, adjust level of salt and pepper to taste.
Serve, with high hopes for a future condo closing.
Alison Rogers is a writer and real estate agent. She is the author of “Diary of a Real Estate Rookie.”