Romanian soup dish, 'Chicken a la Grec' the best chicken soup ever!

 

Easily the best chicken soup I have ever made, and thank you Chef Loredan from the Cuckoo Brow Inn at Far Sawrey who told me about this amazing Romanian soup dish, 'Chicken a la Grec'. Traditionally finished with the herb lovage. Not mine tho since the celery family poison me (my mother used to place celery in pots around the kitchen to keep me from fridge raiding; think garlic and vampires and your'e about there) thus the herbie relative of the Devil's vegetable is excluded.

But and as we all know, if your poorly or worse still weally weally poooorly wiv a culd, then only Heinz chicken soup will comfort, But get this, are you ready? This is so much better, known as a hangover cure this soup could save you following an epic session on the 'lash'. 

Now my version is not completely authentic but it's close, apparently. You should use parts of a chicken and make stock, adding fresh chicken breast at step 2, you should use sour cream, some recipes call for double cream, I used creme fraiche, oh and you should use parsley root in the consomme (step 1) but I've never seen that available, again some recipes confuse this with parsnip. And also I was only making a litre but if you make this, you'll love it.

So step one, a consomme - a litre of water, a chicken stock pot, a red pepper, a carrot, a chicken breast, bay leaf and ground pepper, a small onion. Simmer for thirty minutes or so.

Then remove the chicken breast, and discard the onion and bay leaf. Gather together the remaining vegetables and blend till smooth. Leave the stock to cool slightly.

Step 2 add the blended veg to the stock, chop the chicken breast into small pieces and return. Next place some creme fraiche in a bowl, add an egg yolk, and mix well. This bit is termed 'tempering' so it's really important if you are using sour cream but less so with creme fraiche as it shouldn't split, but do it anyway. So using a ladle add a little stock to the bowl, mix and then add more, add some lemon juice, mix, then add to the pan. Admire the lovely colour, as on the top photo. Next using a garlic press take three cloves of garlic (next time I won't add as much), squeeze and add to the soup. Simmer gently for a few minutes, taste and season. Garnish with parsley, chervil or lovage (maybe)...

In Romania this is 'Ciorba de pui' (Sour chicken soup) and whilst I added several tablespoons of lemon juice, I wouldn't think it sour, I think the creme fraiche and the lemon gave it a pleasing gentle bite. 

I think that once you have made this amazing and simple soup you'll hesitate to open that Heinz chicken soup tin, if you remember that you have a chicken breast in the freezer and creme fraiche in the fridge.