The event that inspired this recipe – a soup and grilled cheese bar for lunch – was so much fun! Everyone loved making their various sandwiches and tasting all the soups! A couple weeks later, a friend was in bed with covid, and I brought her some of the leftover fowl play soup I had frozen, so I guess the moral is always to have homemade soup in the freezer.

COZY NOSTALGIA

by Elizabeth Baer

I’ll begin this week’s column with two caveats: this is not so much about a single recipe as a meal idea, and the recipe below is one of those non-recipes that is more of an outline.

Over the Christmas-New Year’s week we had a lovely group of some family members visiting for lunch, and I was struggling to come up with a menu. We had served a typical brunch of bagels, cream cheese, smoked fish, and scrambled eggs so many times, and everyone had enjoyed numerous frittatas and quiche, so I wanted to offer something different.

When I was a kid, my father often made grilled cheese for weekend lunches, mine with ketchup, my sister’s without, accompanied by a chocolate milkshake (a frappe in MA or cabinet in RI). Although we skipped the milkshakes, this inspired me to offer the iconic cozy lunch of grilled cheese and a bowl of soup.

To make things more fun, I created a grilled cheese and soup bar with lots of choices. I offered two homemade breads, marble rye and rosemary sourdough; three cheeses, Cheddar, Swiss, and American; turkey, ham, and bacon for meats; tomato, avocado, and caramelized onions; and any number of condiments, with the option of either butter or mayonnaise to spread on the outside of the bread. We used both the sandwich press and a nonstick sauté pan on the stove to be more efficient.

For the three soups, I had some ribollita base in the freezer and just needed to add the bread (a version of which was in my first column using leftover Thanksgiving stuffing for the bread, or the usual recipe in another blog post); I made what we call Tommy’s Soup (a favorite from the former Elizabeth’s restaurant in Pittsfield that I wrote about in another column); and I devised what I have now dubbed Fowl Play Soup.

Fowl Play Soup is my non-recipe below, but be aware it does take a while, and it is easier if there is time for the stock to cool before working on the soup itself. We had put the turkey carcass from Thanksgiving in the freezer, and we had just made a whole roast duck because we had seen one offered at a great price. I used the two carcasses to make a rich stock, and after straining the liquid, I patiently removed every bit of meat still clinging to the bones. Later I added a bone-in, skin-on chicken breast because three birds seemed better than two. Of course, this being a non-recipe, it’s entirely flexible and you can just use chicken, which is certainly a more frequent everyday meal.

In the end, the grilled cheese and soup bar was a hit, something I’ll definitely do again, and I am glad I had extra soup for the freezer so we can enjoy it on a frigid winter day.

FOWL PLAY SOUP

Servings variable, can be frozen

INGREDIENTS:

For the stock:

1-3 poultry carcasses
Cold water
2-3 onions, with the skin on, halved through the root
2-3 carrots, cut in half
2-3 celery stalks, cut in half
4-5 sprigs parsley, curly or flat-leaf
2 bay leaves
About 10 whole peppercorns
Kosher salt

For the soup:

Stock from above
1 bone-in, skin-on chicken breast
3-4 parsnips, peeled and cut into ½-inch slices, and into half-moons if large
2-3 carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch slices, and into half-moons if large
1-2 stalks celery cut into ¼-inch slices
1 medium onion, chopped
Kosher salt

DIRECTIONS:

Make the stock. Place the carcasses into a large stockpot and cover by 1-3 inches with cold water. It is important to start with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Be sure to watch carefully at this point, because if a lot of foam is given off from the bones, it can sometimes create a bit of a barrier at the top, causing the stock to boil over, which is no fun to clean up. As the foam rises, skim and discard. I find it easiest to skim repeatedly into a bowl and then discard.

Once you think the bones have given off most of the foam, turn the heat down to a strong simmer and add the onion, carrot, celery, parsley, bay leaves, peppercorns, and a teaspoon of kosher salt. Continue to cook for at least a couple of hours. Once it has reduced somewhat, taste and adjust the salt.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for easier handling. Remove the bones and set aside. Strain the vegetables out of the stock and discard. Place the stock in the refrigerator to cool fully. Sometimes a batch is big enough that I need to use more than one vessel. Patiently work on the bones, removing and shredding all the tender meat you can find and placing in a bowl. Moisten with some stock and put it in the refrigerator until needed.

Once the stock has fully cooled, remove any fat that has solidified on top. I like to strain the stock one or two more times, depending on what dregs have settled to the bottom.

Make the soup. Return the stock to the stockpot and add the chicken breast. Bring to a strong simmer and cook until the chicken breast is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Remove the chicken breast from the soup, remove and discard the skin and bones, and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces. Return the meat to the soup along with the meat from making the stock. Add the remaining vegetables and cook for about 30 minutes until carrots and parsnips are tender. Taste and adjust the salt as needed.

If desired, cooked soup noodles can be added.

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Fowl Play Soup (Berkshire Eagle Column)