During the winter months we often had soup for weeknight dinners. In making soup we never used processed bouillon or stock as a base or seasoning. Today, I still use my mother’s double-boil method when making chicken soup.
The chicken is placed in a pot with cold water and as soon as the water begins to boil, the chicken is immediately removed and added to the second pot of boiling water and vegetables. When you use this method, you never need to skim the soup to remove impurities or fat during cooking.
Pastina and broken long pasta were the garnishes of choice for the broth. They were always boiled separately, drained, and then placed back in the pot. By cooking it this way, we avoided a starchy broth, and any leftover soup could be reheated later with fresh pastina.
As a young girl my mother would bring me to La Pera Poultry Mart on 61st Street in Brooklyn. She would pick out her chickens, looking for the plumpest ones. At home, she would wash and soak them in a saltwater brine and then freeze them. My mother would always tell me, “Fresh chickens are best if frozen before cooking.”
Here is the recipe for Little Meatballs.
Enjoy these and the others from The Italian Daughter's Cookbook.
Chicken Soup with Little Meatballs
6-8
servings1
hour3
hours20
minutesIngredients
1 1 whole chicken, cut into eights
4-1/2 dozen 4-1/2 mini meatballs, uncooked
3 large 3 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
3 3 celery stalks with leaves, sliced
1 large 1 onion, sliced
2 Tbs. 2 fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 clove 1 garlic
3 Tsp. 3 sea salt
1 Lb. 1 pastina or soup pasta
Parmigiano, Grana Padano, or Pecorino cheese, freshly (grated for serving)
Directions
- Prepare meatballs according to recipe (link in copy above), reducing the recipe in half and setting aside the uncooked meatballs once formed.
- Wash chicken and remove and discard about half of the skin and fat.
- In a large pot with 8 cups of cold water, place chicken and begin cooking on medium-high heat.
- When the water begins to boil, immediately transfer the chicken to a colander and discard the water.
- Place 5 quarts of cold water in a large pot, and add the carrots, celery, onion, parsley, garlic and salt.
- Add uncooked meatballs and bring to a boil.
- Add the chicken and continue to cook on medium-low heat, semi-covered, for about two hours.
- Turn off the heat and let set for about 30 minutes.
- Remove chicken from the pot.
- Remove and discard the bones from the chicken.
- With a fork, shred the chicken and place back in the pot.
- Continue cooking for another 3-4 minutes.
- In a separate pot, bring water to a boil.
- Add pastina and cook according to package directions.
- Drain well and let sit in colander.
- Return the soup to a boil.
- Add about three ladles of soup to the empty pastina pot and heat for about 1-minute on high heat before adding the cooked pastina.
- Mix well and add additional soup as desired.
- Serve immediately with the freshly grated cheese of choice.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @appetitomagazine on Instagram and hashtag it with #italianfoodanddrink
Like this recipe?
Follow @Appetitomagazine on Pinterest
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Facebook
