1.5 Kg Chicken(whole carcass) or 500gms Maryland’s
3 Tbls Olive oil
3-6 Cloves garlic
2 Carrots
2 Sticks Celery
3 Tbls Brown Sugar
2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
1 dash paprika
1 Bayleaf
juice of half a lemon(about 2 teaspooons)
3 liters of chicken stock to boost the soup
This should be enough for 4.5L to 5L of chicken soup.
Read through the whole thing it'll make sense.
(and boost my SEO)
All internet recipes need a big story at the start, to understand the logic of this I believe philosophically all my cooking should be basic parings of flavors executed well.
The First Chinese Prime Minster and early philosopher Yi Yin may have written the first Chinese Cookbooks. He wrote the perfect meal was a balance of the 5 tastes; Sweet, Salty, Spicy, Bitter, and Umami.
In this dish:
sweetness is Provided by the brown sugar
the Saltyness is literal Kosher Salt and chicken stock (for the adventurous substitute salt for fish sauce- More on this in other notes but only ever use Redboat Fish Sauce, this is important)
Spicy ness can be ground pepper and optionally finely ground dried cayenne (to taste)
Bitter is the teaspoons of lemon juice celery and bay leaf
the Umami is provided by the collagen in the chicken and garlic but can be "enhanced" with the optional Redboat Sauce
Begin by coating the bottom of your pot, (ideally a cast iron pot) with olive oil roughly 3-4 tablespoons
Once shimmering add 4-6 crushed cloves of garlic on low heat, stirring until fragrant
Add 500 Grams of Chicken, it is ESSENTIAL the chicken has skin and bones still, if you're not comfortable butchering a whole chicken for this purpose and using the carcass to make stock Marylands are fine.
When the chicken is browned not cooked add the Carrot and Celery about 2 cups (I think) of each, but I normally cut up 2 carrots unpeeled, and 2 Sticks of Celery ends trimmed. these chunks should be pretty big.
at this stage add 3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar, salt, and pepper, (smoked paprika optional), and lemon juice, plus 1 or 2 bay leaves, then in a kettle boil 5-6 liters of water and enough chicken stock cubes to turn 2-3L of it to stock depending on the total amount.
Simmer on low for a minimum of an hour and a half - 3 hours and remove chicken and strain while warm to retain oils and fats, then serve at least 24 hours after cooking with carrots and celery.
A Note about red boat fish sauce :
Redboat Fish Sauce is made from fermented anchovies and that's the only ingredient, Anchovies have incredibly rich oil, and the flavor is all but eliminated becoming a salty taste in most cooking so it's not noticeable, however, the coating and characteristics especially the umami texture is retained in the dish, try this in tomato-based pasta sauces as well. In parts of Italy, they would often dissolve anchovies in the olive oil with the garlic which achieves the same result, red boat is more convenient. special thanks to my friend Josh for bringing this to my attention.