Cream of Chicken Soup

I saw this recipe for Cream of Chicken Soup over on Nourished Kitchen and just had to try it. We’ve been wanting to cook one of the Chantecler chickens that we sent off to freezer camp a few weeks ago, and who doesn’t love a soup thickened with egg yolks and cream, right? But reading the recipe sort of made me tired — all that work for a bowl of soup? Plus, that’s a lot of soup for two people, but I was sure it wouldn’t keep well. Frank loves soup, but I’m not sure even he’d eat it all before it went bad. So I made some modifications, and it turned out really well.

I stewed the chicken with the veggies she did, and added a bunch of dried mushrooms to the pot. I used Hens of the Woods, Black Trumpets and Birch Conks. I also put in a bunch of fresh herbs. I love sage with chicken, so put a handful of that, some fresh rosemary sprigs, some fresh oregano and some mint. (Why yes, I am really enjoying having my herbs on the top of my icebox, why do you ask?)

When the chicken was cooked, I pulled it out, let it cool a bit, then took all the meat and skin off of the carcass, then threw the carcass back into the pot and let that simmer overnight and put the meat in the icebox.

In the morning, I strained the stock and canned 7 pints of chicken stock in the pressure canner (40 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure). I love homemade stock!

Then I diced and chopped up all the veggies (carrots, celery, leek), sauteed them until they were tender, then put them back in the pot. I diced up all the chicken and added that it, then simmered it all until the veggies were tender.

Then I took my stick blender to the pot and whirred it all up until it was pretty smooth. I then pulled 7 pints of that mixture (which I just called “chicken soup”) and pressure canned that for 1 hour and 30 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. My theory is that when I want some soup, I can heat up one of these pints, add in the egg yolks and cream, and that’s some fast soup, right there.

With the stuff I had left, I added in the 8 egg yolks, tempering first so it wouldn’t scramble. I heated that for a bit, then hit it with the stick blender again until I got the consistency that I liked. I added the heavy cream, garnished with some parsley and a little black pepper.

It’s just a lovely, lovely soup. So flavorful, such a nice and light texture. We could definitely taste the mushrooms and liked that addition, and the herbs as well.