I got another chicken this week. I am writing about it again to needle my friend, T, some more about using a rotisserie chicken as frugally as possible. My goal is to become the number one site when the phrase “rotisserie chicken” is searched. I’m only joking on that part. It’s more like, “I’m having chicken yet again. What the heck can I do to make it interesting?”
The weather has just started hinting at getting cold here in DC. Normally it’s downright nippy at night, but so far, this October has been the hottest on record, with daily highs in the 80’s. That’s insane for DC this time of year.
As the weather hints at the chill to come, I turn my mind to soup and lots of soup. I eat canned soup, fresh soup, western soup, Korean soup. Soup beyond compare! Soup beyond belief! It’s primarily because I’m lazy and my crock pot loves me.
This week, I wanted to experiment a little. I love cream-based soup, but most Asian people are lactose intolerant. I am no exception. I’ve had an excellent potato leek soup from scratch once. It was really nice, but used a lot of milk. I decided to try an alternative which was simply to puree a potato and add no dairy at all. Someone told me that they liked these silly recipes, so I’m putting it up for you. Cooking is not hard. It really isn’t. Just a little effort goes a long way. This one was particularly stupid simple. Can you boil water? The hardest part is peeling the potatoes when you don’t have a vegetable peeler. (My knife skills are down now that I haven’t spent a lot of time recently in the kitchen.)
Ingredients:
1 Rotisserie chicken
1 carrot
2 potatoes
Garlic cloves
Thyme
Water
Salt
Pepper
Optional:
Tabasco
Onion
Cream or milk
First step always: Pick the meat off that chicken!
2. Boil the carcass with the carrot and garlic. No celery for this one, just to be different.
3. Skim fat off the broth, as you see fit. I didn’t do that this time to add more fatty umami texture/taste to this soup to make up for the lack of actual dairy fat.
4. In a separate pot, peel and dice two potatoes. I used grainy russets for this soup, perhaps not the best because they are baking potatoes, but I’m making do with what I got.
5. Pour about 2-3 cups of chicken stock over the potatoes. Be sure to strain out any stray bits before you do this. Add a sprig of thyme.
6. Boil away till the potatoes are fork tender and fall apart. Then mash with the back of a spoon.
7. Chill soup.
8. Take a hand blender and puree right in the pot till it’s smooth. If you don’t have a hand blender, dump it into a regular blender. No big deal.
9. Reheat as you see fit. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Squeeze a little lemon into it if you like since it doesn’t have any dairy, it won’t curdle on you.
Notes:
- Serve within 24-48 hours or freeze. Cooked potatoes go bad rather quickly if you ask me. They get a funny sour flavor which you can taste right away.
- You can boil up some onion with this soup as well. Either with the stock or when you cook the potato.
- For zest, add a few drops of Tabasco.
- You can always add some cream or milk to this soup recipe. I just choose not.
- Peeling potatoes by paring knife sucks. That’s why KP duty in old WWII films is a punishment. A veggie peeler is one of the few value-propositions in the kitchen that really delivers. I usually scrape my carrots with the back of a knife since I don’t have a peeler, but a potato really needs an peeler or the dreaded paring knife. Next time I go shopping for kitchen tools, I’m going to get an OXO Good Grips one.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I like these recipes too. I almost bought a rotisserie chicken last week, to emulate you, but I just don’t trust myself to make the best use of it because i don’t know what to do with it. I’m not a talent in the kitchen, but i can usually follow a recipe.
This may sound like a stupid recipe to you, but it sounds legit to me. I’m going to try it!
I bought squash yesterday because I got inspired by the squash you had the other day. Cooking frugally is hard for me, so these tips are really helpful!
Sjean-
You might like this post about how to use a whole chicken. All three recipes can be made with one single chicken.
Get Rich Slowly had another rotisserie chicken post as well. It’s more of a broth recipe, but should give you some good ideas.