Creamy chicken soup

On Saturday night we had a roast chicken dinner (and it was good!!).  Anyway, on Sunday I made a chicken soup with the leg meat from the chicken.  This is another cheap soup to make and makes good use of the chicken by using the bones for stock.

To make the soup you will need some chicken, chicken stock, an onion, 2 carrots, 2 leeks, 2/3 medium sized potatoes, butter, plain flour and thyme (I use dried).

First of all I boiled the bones of the chicken to make a stock for the soup.  Sometimes I will add onion, carrot, celery and maybe a few peppercorns to the water for a bit more flavour, but on Sunday I just boiled the bones.  After about half an hour, I strained the contents of the pot and set the stock to the side for use in my soup.  I usually have about 1.5 litres of stock for this recipe.  A chicken stock cube can be used instead, but I prefer this soup made with stock I've made myself.

To make the soup I begin cooking the vegetables in a frying pan.  I try and cut all the vegetables into small chunks of a similar size.  First, I chop the onion and fried it in fry lite (usually I will fry it in butter), then add chopped carrot and potato.  I put a lid over the frying pan and cook the vegetables for a few mins before adding chopped leeks and some thyme (I put about a teaspoon of dried thyme in).  I give the vegetables a good stir, before putting the lid back on the pan and cooking for a further 5-10 minutes, taking care to not let the vegetables burn.

Meanwhile, I get the stock ready for adding the vegetables.  I melt a knob butter in the bottom of a non-stick soup pot.  I then add 2 tablespoons of plain flour and whisk.  The stock that was set aside earlier is then added to this mixture a little at a time, whisking each time stock is added, until it is all in the pot.  I bring this to the boil and then add the vegetables to the pot.  I then simmer the soup until the vegetables are soft. 

As soon as the vegetables are soft I add the chicken that was leftover from the roast dinner to the pot.  Once the chicken is heated through the soup is ready to serve.  It is very filling and makes a brilliant dinner on a winters night, but this week we will be eating it for lunch.

TIP  To lower the fat content of the soup, omit the butter and flour and simply heat the stock in the soup pot and add the vegetables.