Chicken Soup

By Pollin

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Chicken or ideally 1 chicken carcass and 1 whole chicken
• 1 Cup Onion
• 1 Cup Celery
• 1 Cup Carrots - Remember this is your mirepoux, the exact amount is not all that important what is important is the proportion, it should all be equal parts.
• I used one container Trader Joe mirepoux.
• 2 Cups White Wine - Remember the rule for cooking with wine, if you wouldn't drink it at the table you shouldn't cook with it.
• 8-12 Cups cold water depending on the size of the pot and the size of the chicken
• I only used 6 cups water and had to had to more after.
• 4-6 Cloves Garlic
• 1-2 TBSP Oregano *** I used 1 tsp Italian season
• 1-2 TBSP Thyme *** I used a couple sprigs of thyme
• 1 TBSP Salt
• 1 TBSP Pepper
• 1-2 Large Tomatoes, Chopped

Details

Servings 8
Adapted from epicurious.com

Preparation

Step 1

1-2 Cups cooked of your starch, could be rice, could be pasta, could be beans could be potatoes but that would change the whole character of your soup so if you want to use potatoes use with caution.
Optional: ½ Pound of chopped mushrooms I like to use baby bellas and I brown them in oil prior to adding them in the finishing the soup step, but any mushrooms you like would work so long as you don't add them too early, if you don't like mushrooms feel free to omit them and it won't be a problem.
Optional: Some form of hot pepper or pepper powder to make it more interesting, I like to use peppers in the preparation of the starch so that the flavor in the finished soup is subtle, if you want a stronger pepper flavor try adding a Habanero or Bhut Jolokia pepper minced to the stock mixture. As with the mushrooms if you don't like hot food feel free to omit the peppers and you will still have great soup.

***Top with fresh reggiano