Slow cooked Chicken soup & brown rice

It's a frosty winters week here in Amsterdam, so it was a perfect occasion to prepare my slow cooked chicken soup! This one, is truly worth taking your time for as it takes about an afternoon to prepare and slow cook. But the hearty, delicious result is so worth it. Plus it serves up to six portions so if it's just two or three people in your household then you've got your meals covered for two days. The other thing I really like about preparing this recipe is, because it takes you a good 3 to 4 hours in total you will notice it automatically invites you to slow your pace as well. So why not put on some music and perhaps enjoy a glass of wine while you're preparing and let the cooking take you to that magical place of flow...

Ps. In order to optimise the intake of brown rice in your gut it's best to soak the brown rice overnight.

Bon appetit and stay warm people!

x

Ingredients:

1 organic soup chicken
2 full cups brown rice (soaked overnight)
2 red chilli
8 cm fresh ginger finely chopped
3 medium carrots (chopped in half)
2 (vegetable) bouillon cubes
6 garlic cloves finely chopped
2 red sweet paprika peppers
1 large leek (washed and cut in rings)
1 paksoi, wash, cut and separate white & green. Set aside.
2 onions, 1 red, 1 white, sliced in half rings
12 tablespoons olive oil (6 for chicken and 6 for soup)
2 handful of freshly chopped parsley for topping
salt & pepper for flavour
2 bayleaf
1 teaspoon of oregano

Preparation:

Start by cooking the brown rice according to the instructions on your packaging. Once cooked, set aside.

Chicken:
- Use iron cast casserole, put it on medium heat. Add 6 tablespoons of olive oil and put the whole chicken in the pan. Sear chicken on each side for 6 minutes.
Add the ginger, red chili (with seeds) chopped garlic cloves. Allow to sear for about 6 minutes whilst turning the chicken each side for about 3 minutes each. Make sure to keep turning the ginger et with a spatula for it not to burn. Now rub in a generous amount of salt and pepper on back and bottom of chicken. Sear another 5 minutes and then turn off heat.

Soup:

In a large soup pan on medium heat, add the remaining oil, the onion and simmer until golden. Add all vegetables apart from the paprika and paksoi. Stir on high heat for 6 minutes.

- Carefully take out the chicken from the other casserole and place on top of the vegetables in the large pan. Also scoop in all the oil and chili, ginger and garlic condiments from pan you used for the chicken!

- Put on kettle and boil 1,5 liters of water. Once boiled, add water to the chicken and vegetables.

- Add the bayleaf, oregano, extra salt and pepper and the vegetable broth cubes.

- Put lid on and lower heat, simmer for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes boil 1 extra liter and add to the soup. Cook for another 40 minutes. Add the paprika and white parts of paksoi and cook for ten more minutes.

- Now take out the chicken carefully in a dish and let cool enough so you can dismantle it and pluk it. It will be a bit tougher than a regular chicken because it's a soup chicken, but the taste is great!

Plating up:

- Scoop enough soup for the portions you need into a smaller pan and now add the tomatoes and green leafs of the paksoi and bring back to almost boil. Add as many bits of chicken as you like to the smaller pan.

Now scoop a desired amount of brown rice to a soup bowl and serve the soup on top or around it. Sprinkle with some ketjap sauce and parsley and optionally some extra salt.

Serves 6

Preparation and cooking time: 3 to 4 hours