Leftover Chicken Soup

We had roast chicken.

And then we had leftovers.

What I usually do is chop up the cooked chicken and use it later (cooked chicken freezes really well) in a Caesar salad, a tortilla or what not. On Thursday, however, when I got home and took the chicken out of the fridge, it was raining. And cold. And it had been raining and cold all day. And all I wanted was a nice, soul-filling chicken soup.

It was the easiest thing ever, and I even elevated it by making a little pie dough bowl! Which I had, ready to use, in the fridge. You can also make your own pie dough, but I haven’t shared the recipe. Yet.

So I used store-bought pie dough, which worked out fine. Just cut some pieces of dough with a pair of scissors and stick them back together in an oven-proof bowl that will hold it in shape.

Cover it with aluminium foil.

Weigh the aluminium down with whatever you want. I used pebbles, collected in Valencia and about to be used for quite a few artistic projects (such as my Mini Otter Zen Gardens!)

Cook for about 30mins at 200C. Check to see if it’s ready by touching it lightly with a fork. As soon as it starts to become hard, uncover it and let it cook five minutes more to get some colour.

Now, for the soup. Which you can make while the bowl is a-bakin’.

Chop the leftover chicken and scoop up the jellied juices that will be on the bottom of the container you stored it in.

Now, make a roux. This means:

• melt some butter over a low fire
• add a spoonful or two of flour
• constantly stirring or it’ll burn

The method does not give much time or chance to take photos, so the following photo is what it is

Now, add a glass of hot water and stir stir stir! Next, slowly add the jellied juices and a homemade bouillon cube. As soon as these melt, add some more water. How much? As much as the soup you want to then eat. Let it boil over a medium-low fire.

Add the chicken

Then the corn

and the leftover potatoes (yes, it sounds incredible but we had leftover potatoes!)

Scoop in some dijon mustard, pepper and fresh rosemary

Here it is, all the flavours mixing and blending (yum!)

Put some grated/diced cheese (gouda will do) on the bottom of the pie dough bowl and let it melt in the warm oven

and finally, finally! put the thick, amazing, perfect soup in the pie dough bowl

Are you ready for this?