The Soup Strikes Back.

Following my flatmate’s bout of food poisoning (to me, minor; to her, ghastly), I was forced to forgo making a rich lasagna for dinner and instead replace it with something a little less heavy and a little easier to digest.

The brief was that it couldn’t require much effort on her part, had to involve a broth and absolutely had to contain glass noodles. The answer here was obvious: I’ve already hammered on about the healing properties of soup, and what better way to really rehash a tired argument than to blog about it again?

This time around, the soup was light and fragrant and filled with fresh ingredients. The chicken remained tender and moist and the bok choy added a nice dose of clean, natural flavour. If possible, I much prefer using fresh vegetables over tinned or even frozen. There’s something invigorating about eating pure and wholesome vegetables that you can’t really emulate in a cylindrical piece of aluminum or a plastic bag. Buy in season and, if you live near one, buy from a fruit and vegetable market, such as Paddy’s in Sydney. You save money this way and also get the most bang for your hard-earned buck in terms of freshness and flavour.

The use of fresh vegetables also really ups the healing ante with the addition of extra vitamins and minerals. It was the perfect antidote to my flatmate’s ailments and the best way to silence her cries of pain (admittedly only for a lowly ten minutes) as she noisily slurped it down.

Chicken, Noodle and Bok Choy Soup.

Chicken, Noodle and Bok Choy Soup

Serves 4

4 chicken drumsticks

1.5L chicken stock

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 tsp powdered ginger

200g dried rice sticks (also known as rice noodles)

1 bunch bok choy, washed and roughly chopped

pepper, to taste

1. Place the stock and the chicken drumsticks into a large pot and bring to the boil.

2. Reduce to a simmer and add the soy sauce, ginger and pepper.

3. Simmer on medium heat for around 40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Pull a piece out and cut open to check.

4. Add the rice noodles, cover with the soup stock and cook for a further 10 minutes or until the noodles are cooked through.

5. Add the chopped bok choy and cook for another 5 minutes.

6. Check the seasoning and add more soy sauce accordingly.

7. Remove from the heat and ladle into bowls to serve.

* If you so desire, you can shred the chicken off the bones after they’re cooked and re-add it. Much to my flatmate’s embarrassment, I’m an infamous bone-gnawer and prefer to keep it on.

Seriously Simple Soup.

When times get tough, soup is what’s called for. It’s nourishing, nutritional and tasty (I searched desperately for a synonym for ‘tasty’ starting with ‘n’ to keep the alliterative ball rolling but only thought of ‘nommy’, which probably doesn’t even exist and, if it did, would just be plain ridiculous. But anyway). There’s something comforting in a bowl of hot soup. Memories of bad days and general teen angst are brought back by the only cure all: my mother’s chicken and vegetable soup. Potato soup will forever remind me of my Ukrainian grandmother. Pumpkin soup will always conjure up the first time I made soup myself, as a naive 12-year-old who thought adding cheese was a good idea.

Following the bake-a-thon, which proved to be fantastically therapeutic, I decided to up the healing ante and make some chicken and corn soup for my dear flatmate. Admittedly I’ve always been wary of the stuff – finding the varieties available at local Chinese restaurants strangely comparable to glue. An excess of corn flour (and Lord knows what else) means I’m always left with that claggy mouth feeling and a bowl of unfinished gloop. But I decided to persevere, if only for the sake of household peace.

Searching through recipes for the soup, I was saddened to find that most of them contain bacon, shallots, sesame oil, ginger and chicken breast – things that, sure, probably make the dish undoubtedly delicious, but things that I certainly can’t afford for one lowly meal.

So we KISSed – and for all of you that know us, no, this does not put to rest those rumours – by Keeping It Simple, Stupid. We omitted pretty much everything and made it a very basic, but nevertheless flavoursome, dish. By all means add the aforementioned ingredients to make it even better but, if the only thing at your disposal is a few tins of corn and some low-grade meat, go with my option.

Chicken and Corn Soup.

Chicken and Corn Soup

Serves 2

2 chicken legs

1 400g tin of corn kernels

1 400g tin of creamed corn

2 cups of chicken stock

1 TBSP soy sauce

1/2 tsp ginger powder (optional)

2 eggs (optional)

salt and pepper

1. Place the chicken legs on a roasting tray and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Roast them for around 30 minutes in a 200C oven, turning occasionally for even browning.

3. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

4. In a large pot, place the corn kernels, creamed corn and chicken stock.

5. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.

6. Add the soy sauce and ginger powder and season to taste.

7. Using your fingers, tear the meat off the chicken legs and add to the soup.

8. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes and then remove from heat.

9. Ladle into bowls and stir an egg through each one.

Let’s Toast to the Roast.

Nothing beats a good roast dinner. It covers all the major food groups (protein, carbohydrate, vegetable… sometimes) and tastes utterly delicious. It’s easy to prepare, doesn’t require loads of time devoted to it and, best of all, stretches for days with leftovers. Beef can be used for sandwiches, stews and stocks; lamb for, well, the same; and chicken for all of the above as well as pasta and salads. The roast really is the best all rounder.

There are so many different flavour options when roasting meat. You can go Moroccan or Indian with spicy marinades and rubs, Italian with herbs like basil and oregano, French with garlic or tarragon, or Australian with funky brown lacquer and bready stuffing. But I like to keep it simple with garlic, lemon, salt and pepper. Again, the roast’s diversity makes it an almost perfect meal.

Now when purchasing your chosen meat, don’t be daunted by the seemingly expensive price tag. Sure, the meat might set you back 10 to 20 dollars, but when considering its long life and versatility, it really is worth it. You can always pick up meat on special and, if you’re really desperate, buy one of those two-chickens-for-5-dollars deals. I did once, and, although they were tiny and the meat almost non-existant, bar the chewy scraps found on the thighs, they managed to satisfy my roast craving.

But do go for the best you can afford. On this particular instance, we were lucky enough to have two other people putting in for the chicken and decided to go free range. The quality of the meat is considerably better – producing a more tasty and moist end result. It’s also a more ethical, chicken-friendly way to go.

As a side note, I apologise for the retro, ’70s era-looking photo. Fixing up the effects of bad fluro lighting is quite hard.

Retro Garlic and Lemon Roasted Chicken.

Garlic and Lemon Roast Chicken with Herbed Potatoes

500g potatoes, washed and chopped into quarters

2 TBSP olive oil

1 TBSP dried mixed herbs

1 medium-size whole chicken

1/2 a lemon

7 cloves of garlic

50g butter

salt and pepper

1. Fill a medium saucepan with cold water and add the potatoes.

2. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer, covering the saucepan with a lid.

3. Once the potatoes are almost fully cooked (there should still be some resistance when pierced with a fork), remove from the heat and drain.

4. Place back in the saucepan with the olive oil and herbs and season well with salt and pepper.

5. With the lid on, shake the saucepan around to coat the potatoes. This will also give them a rough surface for roasting, which produces a crisper exterior. But seriously, make sure you hold on tight to that lid. A hot potato to the face can hurt.

6. Preheat the oven to 200C.

7. Place the chicken in a roasting pan and squeeze the lemon juice all over it.

8. Place the squeezed lemon inside the cavity, along with the cloves of garlic.

9. Peel back the skin on top of the breast and stuff half the butter down each side. Basically the butter will be between the skin and the meat.

10. Rub the remaining butter all over the chicken. As well as producing a nice crisp skin, it’s very therapeutic.

11. Season liberally with salt and pepper.

12. Scatter the potatoes around the chicken and place in the oven.

13. Roast for around 45 minutes to an hour, or until the skin browns and the potatoes are crisp.

14. Serve.