posted by Angel 11-14-100 10:16 PM
Auntie Jean’s Soup Secret
(Or, how to have homemade soup when you just got home from work.)
1 preserving kettle
3 to 4 slices geshelte flanken (boiling beef; ask your Jewish butcher)
1 chicken, cut in quarters
cold water
3 to 4 Tbsp. salt
pepper to taste
3 stalks celery, sliced
4 large carrots, pared and sliced like dimes
2 parsnips, pared and sliced
4 potatoes, pared and sliced in bite size pieces
2 large onions, pared and sliced
fresh dill
2 pkg. Manischewitz soup (cello tubes of soup mix by Jewish firms e.g. Horowitz, Margareten or Streit's)
1/2 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup lentils
1/2 cup lima beans or whatever
legumes you have or desire
Use any combination of bite-sized vegetables and legumes you desire.
If you want a chickeny soup, use 1 1/2 chickens plus 1 slice flanken. If you want a beefy soup, use just flanken, or flanken plus 1 to 2 quarts of chicken. Fill preserving kettle 1/2 or more full of cold water. Add meat and bring to a boil. Skim the scum off that forms as the water boils. After 20 minutes, add all other ingredients except dill. Cover again. Return to a boil. Then turn down and simmer for 2 to 3 hours until barley is tender.
In last 20 minutes add dill. Skim the fat before serving. The first night I serve soup and the meat. Then, once the soup has cooled, I ladle it into covered plastic containers I keep for this purpose. If there's meat leftover, I cut it small and put some in each container. I make as many contain- ers as I have soup for. Then cover them and freeze them. These soups are always tastier the second day. And what a wonderful boon to come home and heat up on a cold winter day.