Chicken Garlic Soup
This soup is a version of Czech Garlic Soup just with some added chicken and some other minor changes. It’s a tasty and nutritious bowl of comfort.
When I came across this soup recipe I knew it was the dish for me. The original recipe can be vegetarian; it says to use chicken or vegetable stock preferably homemade. So I knew that an easy way to make the dish my own would be to use the leftovers of a roasted chicken to both make the stock and turn the soup into a chicken soup.
I’ve called this chicken garlic soup rather than garlic chicken soup. Because if I saw a soup called garlic chicken soup I would expect it to taste like a puréed Chicken Kiev. This soup does not taste like that. It tastes like a chicken soup with a strong flavour of garlic.
Oh, something to be aware of – there are caraway seeds in this. Caraway seeds taste slightly sweet, slightly citrusy, slightly aniseedy, slightly perfumy. They have a very particular taste. Now personally I like caraway seeds but they are never something I crave. But they do have a very distinctive taste and some people don’t like them at all. And obviously some people love them. If you do not have any caraway seeds you could use ground coriander seeds as a substitute.
Other changes
As well as adding chicken, I left out the onion and added in chives instead. To be honest this was just because I used up the onion I had making the stock. Onions add sweetness to a dish, sort of, so I added in some carrots for the sweetness instead.
And I added in parsley because it pairs well with garlic, I think.
I added in the cream because – why not? I really like cream.
Czech it out!
(Sorry I couldn’t resist that pun.)
I have not yet been to the Czech Republic. I would really like to go. So what is there to check out in the Czech Republic?
Oh wow, I’ve just found something I’d love to visit – the Museum of Alchemists and Magicians of Old Prague. I love finding out about old crazy beliefs.
OK instead of me listing out the things I’d love to see, let me just link to some good lists of places:
- 10 Best Places to Visit in the Czech Republic
- 62 Cool, Hidden, and Unusual Things to Do in Prague
- 16 Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in the Czech Republic
Ingredients
- olive oil and butter
- 2 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 carrots, sliced
- 8 - 12 garlic cloves, half to be bruised and sliced, half to be minced or crushed
- 1.5 litres chicken stock, preferably homemade, see below
- ~ 300g cooked chicken, skin and bones removed
- 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
- some thyme
- bunch of chives, chopped
- bunch of parsley
- salt
- pepper
- single cream
- Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese
Instructions
- Put a deep pot on a gentle-moderate heat.
- Add some chopped onion to the pot to sweat for a few minutes.
- Add some roughly chopped carrots and celery.
- Using the leftover carcass of a roasted chicken, first pick off the chicken to add to the soup later, then roughly break up the carcass.
- Add the broken carcass to the pot with some bruised garlic cloves, some thyme, a small piece of nutmeg, a couple of bayleafs, some peppercorns and some salt.
- Cover with 3 litres of water. Put heat on high, bring to the boil, reduce heat to moderate and leave it to gently simmer away for 2 hours.
- Finally pass the contents of the pot through a sieve into a deep bowl. Discard what is left in the sieve.
- Heat a little olive oil in a deep saucepan. Add in a generous bit of butter. When this has melted ,reduce heat to gentle-moderate and add the sliced garlic. Stir around for a minute or two.
- Stir in the diced potato and sliced carrot. Reduce heat and cover the pan. Let the veg cook for 10 minutes or so or until a little softened.
- Add in the thyme leaves, chives, caraway seeds and the rest of the garlic.
- Stir in the chicken and pour over the chicken stock. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 1 hour.
- Stir in a bunch of chopped parsley. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Blend with a stick blender. I just roughly blended the soup until it was nicely creamy looking.
- Remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.
- Stir in a good splash of cream and adjust seasoning as necessary.
- Serve with some grated cheese and chopped parsley. Enjoy!
