Flu Shot Soup

Lawson got a flu shot Friday, which always makes him feel crummy and sleepy and flulike a day or two afterward. That's not supposed to happen, according to what I've read, since the virus in the vaccine is dead, but he says it always does, so whatever.

Anyway, yesterday he felt bad and I invented this soup. It's somewhere in between chicken-noodle soup and Nina Simonds' cinnamon beef noodles. And it's so much healthier and more satisfying than regular chicken-noodle soup.

We had a carcass left over from last week, when I roasted a whole chicken. I made a stock using the carcass, an onion, a few carrots, and a number of turnip stalks. I threw in a few bay leaves but otherwise kept it pretty unseasoned because I didn't know at that point what I was going to make.

After the stock had simmered for hours and was good and rich and drained and cooling off in the refrigerator, I sauteed a chopped onion, a big clove of garlic, a few chopped carrots, and a potato. I added a little sherry, then some chopped turnip greens (maybe half of a medium bunch -- not so much that the soup was overwhelmed). I then seasoned the soup with salt, star anise, cinnamon, and coriander and simmered everything for about 35 minutes, until the potato was soft. I took out the star anise and added some shredded chicken left over from the roasting -- about one breast and one leg's worth -- and a cup of pasta stars, and let it simmer for 10 minutes more. All it needed then was black pepper.

Stock is just not very pretty.

Cooking Miscellany

I made preserved lemons earlier this week—the quick kind, which involved quartering five lemons, tossing them with ½ cup kosher salt, putting them in a quart jar, and adding ½ cup lemon juice. The jar sits at room temperature for three days, then is refrigerated for two days, and they’re ready.

I used some of the preserved lemons in a fish recipe from the Roden Middle Eastern foods book, and I had never guessed how they would taste—more like a green olive, sour and salty, and unlike anything else. A wonderful discovery.

The Roden book has so many fish recipes! I plan to try every one.

We had Dad’s bok choy with it.

I’ve felt guilty about our food waste since our compost pile is out of commission at present, so I have tried keeping a stock pot going. That’s not an option here in the summer, but it’s quite pleasant to have it adding to the warmth of the house in the winter. My stock tends to be rather dark and murky because of using it as a compost substitute, but it has enriched a few soups and sauces.