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Chicken soup — two ways

Love is the ultimate medicine, followed by food.

Do not underestimate the power of a nourishing meal prepared with love! I have many books with amazing pospartum recipes from different cultures, but every place and time has warming and nourishing foods appropriate for healing a postpartum womb. In our house we often have “pasta two-ways”, a tradition from my partner’s Argentinian family. Here is chicken soup two-ways, one rooted in the place I was raised and the other influenced by Los Angeles, where I have lived the past 10 years.

Ingredients

1 whole high quality chicken (ideally slow growth heritage breed pasture raised — the qi of the chicken’s life goes into you, and they taste better!)
1-2 stalks of celery
1-2 carrots
1 onion
ginger
bay leaf
salt & pepper

For slippery dumplings:

flour, enough, but not too much (see below)
fat (of your choice — could be animal, butter, olive oil), enough, but not too much. I usually use EVOO and butter
salt & pepper
water, enough, but not too much

For Mexicali tortilla soup:

white onion

lime
cilantro
Optional:
Tortillas (I like the small corn ones)
radishes if they are in season and beautiful
Cheddar or Mexican queso Oaxaco or queso asadero (for snacks with the leftovers, see below) avocado

Cooking Instructions

Prepare your work station, thinking of the parents to be and their new child. Feel the love in your heart as you welcome the new child to this planet and you send well wishes to the new parents on their journey. Think of all the humans throughout time who have prepared food for a loved one, and feel the luck of being able to continue this. Come back to this feeling periodically as you prepare the soup.

Unwrap the bird, pull out the giblets from the cavity, and trim any feather quills if you see any. Rinse, put into a large clean soup pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Thank the farmers for raising this animal you can feed to your loved one. Thank the bird.

A greyish scum will develop as the water begins to simmer; keep removing and discarding this scum until no more develops. It is a big debate in our house whether or not this step matters. Of course no one will die if you don’t do this, but it smells and looks funny. Just do it! We want to make something exquisite to eat and why skip such an easy step?

While this step is happening, you can peel the carrot, and mince the carrot, celery, and onion. Also peel and mince a tiny knob of ginger. It is easy for postpartum people to contract cold in their womb – the ginger in this recipe is to add just a bit of warming qi for the postpartum mother, and not so much a strong ginger-flavor, so a small amount will do.

Once there is no more scum to skim, add the minced veggies and ginger, bay leaves, salt and pepper. You can be generous with the warming pepper, but not overpowering. Bay leaf is digestive. Thank the chicken, the vegetables, and the herbs for their medicine as you put them in the pot.

Continue to simmer, adding water as necessary, until the bird falls apart.

At this point you can use tongs to lift the bird and all its bits into a large colander on a plate. Return any drippings to the pot. Once the very hot bird has cooled enough to handle, you want to go through and separate the skin and bones from the meat. I usually have 3 plates for sorting: skin, meat, and bones, etc. The skin is for the dogs, the bones can either go into compost, get soaked in vinegar to feed your tomatoes, or cooked down further in a slow cooker for a bone broth. The meat should be very tender at this point and easily fall apart at its grain. It is DELICIOUS. This is where you can really appreciate the difference in source quality and all the work of our farmers working to raise animals better for our collective planetary and human health.

usually do not return all of the meat to the soup, because it can get too thick for my taste. Use whatever you keep aside to make a high quality chicken salad for your household.

Now the fun part! This will make your soup gift to the newly-postpartum family extra special – chicken two ways.

First, the slippery dumplings

This recipe is from our neighbor when I was growing up; she was in her 80s when I was kid. The instructions are given with her specifications and measurements as given to her mother…don’t get nervous, these instructions work.

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl, add some fat for flavor and adhesion, and then mix in just enough water to make it workable. If it gets too sticky, you can add more flour. This is a very forgiving process. Flour your countertop and rolling pin and roll out the dough until it is about as thin as you would make a pie crust.

Now, because you want the recipient of your soup gift to add the dumplings to the boiling soup when they are about to eat it, stop here. I then use wax paper to roll up the dough…cut a length of wax paper that corresponds to how much dough you rolled out, dust the outer layer of the dough with a bit of flour, and roll up and refrigerate. Your receiving family can unroll this when ready to eat, cut into strips with a butter knife, and drop into the boiling soup. Let them cook for a few minutes and then serve.

Second, the MexiCali garnish.

I like to give both options to my families so that they have some variety as they work through their soup and because both ways are so delicious.

Finely mince white onion

Slice limes into wedges (or let the family do when ready to prevent spoilage)

Put a fresh handful of cilantro, radishes, and tortillas into the care package for serving time

When the family wants to flavor their soup this way, they can chop up some cilantro and add the minced onion and chopped cilantro to their hot soup along with a squeeze of lime. Garnish each bowl with wedges of ripe avocado and serve with heated up tortialls. So delicious! No one says you can’t combine the slippery dumplings with the Mexicali garnishes if you want to go all in.

If you also provide some cheddar or Mexican queso Oaxaco or queso asadero, the family can use the leftover tortillas and cheese to make quick quesadilla snacks for any older kids or visiting family members.

A quick note on packaging your care package

Consider the size of your family and how many other dishes they may be receiving at the time. In other words, how quickly will they be able to eat what you bring them? I like to portion out the soup into jars; each jar contains the amount for one meal appropriate to that family size, and do not go above the curve so that they can easily be thrown into the freezer without cracking.

Final steps: deliver your package with love in an easy to transport box, and without any pretense of a visit or even a quick -peek at the newborn. If the family is dying for you to come in, they will let you know!