- 1,498
- 373
- Joined Oct 23, 2008
With the temperatures dropping just a tad, I've been making more soups/stews lately. Yesterday I made my version of a chicken corn chowder. I don't follow recipes anymore (unless it's baking) I haven't for a long time, but I thought I'd describe my approach and see what you guys might do differently.
Started with 5 chicken leg quarters ($4.55 make for a great chicken purchase) and brown both sides of 3 of them. Afterward a couple carrots chopped, and the tops of the celery including leaves. Just enough water to cover and salt & pepper. Let this come to boil then simmered for a couple hours. I couldn't skim it, but I didn't end up with too many funky floaters. I strained this all into a large bowl and let that sit. The chicken leg quarters were cooled, and then "pulled" of all meat. I was going to discard the celery and carrot but I couldn't help taking a bite about every 5th piece of chicken pulled /img/vbsmilies/smilies/redface.gif
I skimmed about half of the chicken fat off of the stock, then returned the stock to the pot along with the pulled chicken meat. A large bag of frozen yellow corn kernels, 4 celery stalkes diced, 1 whole large white onion cut into small pieces, and a bag of small butter potatoes quartered joined the mix.
This all cooked down until everything was soft (a couple more hours) then the heat was turned off and 1 small carton of heavy whipping cream was stirred in. Using an immersion blender, I targeted the butter potatoes for a kind of slurry and created a thick chowder texture.
I am pleased with how it came out, but I did omit any kind of herbs, or bay leaves. What would you guys do differently? I imagine this would be very good with some andouille mixed in as well. I also didn't add any butter at all, I figured the chicken fat would take care of that and has it's own sense of richness.
Started with 5 chicken leg quarters ($4.55 make for a great chicken purchase) and brown both sides of 3 of them. Afterward a couple carrots chopped, and the tops of the celery including leaves. Just enough water to cover and salt & pepper. Let this come to boil then simmered for a couple hours. I couldn't skim it, but I didn't end up with too many funky floaters. I strained this all into a large bowl and let that sit. The chicken leg quarters were cooled, and then "pulled" of all meat. I was going to discard the celery and carrot but I couldn't help taking a bite about every 5th piece of chicken pulled /img/vbsmilies/smilies/redface.gif
I skimmed about half of the chicken fat off of the stock, then returned the stock to the pot along with the pulled chicken meat. A large bag of frozen yellow corn kernels, 4 celery stalkes diced, 1 whole large white onion cut into small pieces, and a bag of small butter potatoes quartered joined the mix.
This all cooked down until everything was soft (a couple more hours) then the heat was turned off and 1 small carton of heavy whipping cream was stirred in. Using an immersion blender, I targeted the butter potatoes for a kind of slurry and created a thick chowder texture.
I am pleased with how it came out, but I did omit any kind of herbs, or bay leaves. What would you guys do differently? I imagine this would be very good with some andouille mixed in as well. I also didn't add any butter at all, I figured the chicken fat would take care of that and has it's own sense of richness.