Hello Everyone! Another week, another soup on the blog today! Just three more soupy recipes to go until the end of Winter Warmer Month, and gosh until the end of July as well! I can’t believe time has flown by that fast! It’s making me said because that basically means that I have about 2 weeks left in this beautiful city that I have called home for the past 4 and a half years. It’ll be heartbreaking to leave, but it’s time that I get my career life together and make that transition from uni life to a professional working life.

Anyway, enough about how my life is and will be for the next few weeks/months/years, let’s get onto today’s recipe shall we? If you’ve read my previous blog post on my Moroccan Pumpkin Soup, you might remember me going on about how I can’t believe that they don’t sell chipotle peppers in any of the big grocery stores here in Sydney. Well, when I was out doing a quick shopping run at a with my friend Marissa (basically just buying extra ingredients to go with our dinner for that day), I tried my luck to see if the Asian store that we went to sold chipotle peppers. To my surprise, they did, canned and in adobo sauce as well! My reaction was sort of like a what the *bleep* is this for real kind of reaction. I even said to myself that I should’ve popped by this store before I went all Moroccan on my pumpkin soup, and this was honestly like 2 day after I had posted my pumpkin soup recipe. Since they had them in store, and only 4 cans remaining, I decided to buy a can and figure out ow I can use them for another recipe seeing as I practically went cuckoo trying to find these peppers.

Today I had actually scheduled a recipe for Cauliflower and Stilton Soup, but instead, seeing as I had the chipotle peppers, I decided to do a Hearty Chipotle Chicken Soup. The soup that I made is the exact definition of a Winter Warmer Soup; it had a nice kick to it from the chipotle peppers, and a lovely sweetness to it from the corn, while the beans and the chicken meat bulked the soup up. You can find the original recipe on Taste of Home. I’ve tweaked the method a bit as well as some of the ingredients for my recipe.

For the chicken broth, I bought 2 chicken carcasses from the butcher and boiled it together with some bay leaves, sea salt, black peppercorns, and ginger for about 45 minutes to an hour to get the flavour into the broth. I then shredded the meat from the carcasses and used them to bulk my soup up instead of using chicken breasts as the original recipe used. I also used fresh field grown gourmet tomatoes and roasted them over the gas stove to give it that flame-roasted flavour to them for my soup. Yes I probably picked the most time consuming way to make this soup, but it was all worth it in the end I believe. I completely forgot to deseed the chipotle peppers, as the original recipe stated, before adding them to the soup, but I’m glad I didn’t because, though it gave the soup a good kick, it wasn’t as spicy as I thought it be. If I had deseeded them, I don’t think they give the heat that I had with this dish.

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 1 HOUR 20 MINS | SERVES 3-4

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups chicken broth
• 3 small field grown gourmet tomatoes, flame-roasted and cut into chunks
• 2-3 dried bay leaves
• 2 large chicken carcasses, washed and cleaned thoroughly
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, sliced or minced
• 2 ears of corn, cut from the cob
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 1 can (400g) cannellini beans, drained
• 2 tsp adobo sauce (from the chipotle peppers)
• Fresh cilantro or coriander
• Ground salt and black pepper to taste
• Thickened cream or sour cream
• Thumb-sized ginger, sliced
• Whole black peppercorns

METHOD

1. Add the chicken carcasses together with the bay leaves, ginger, salt, and whole black peppercorns, to a large pot with enough water to cover the chicken. Boil for about 45 minutes to an hour over medium-high heat. Remove the chicken carcasses from the broth and set aside to cool. Strain the broth into a bowl and discard the bay leaves, ginger, and peppercorns. Set aside for later.
2. Once the chicken carcasses have cooled down, pull the meat from the chicken carcasses and shred to small pieces. Set aside.
3. Heat the same pot over medium-high with a little bit of cooking oil. Sauté the garlic until golden brown and fragrant. Then add in the onions and cook until soft. Add in the shredded chicken pieces and season with a bit of salt and pepper. Give it a good mix and follow with the adobo sauce, chipotle peppers, cannellini beans, sweet corn, and tomatoes to the chicken mixture. Give it a good mix and let it cook further for about 5-6 minutes before adding the chicken broth in.
4. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, bring the heat down to medium-low and let the soup simmer away for a further 10-15 minutes to ensure all the flavours blend together.
5. Divide the soup equally into serving bowls (3 large bowls, or 4 small bowls) and top with a dollop of whipped thickened cream and fresh cilantro. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Anyway, before I end this post, I would just like to share my experiences of how I’ve heard other people try to pronounce chipotle (chee-poat-lay). The very best, and even I still remember until now even if it’s been just about 2 years ago, I’ve heard chip-poh-lah-tay from Jack Harries (jacksgap) on YouTube when he was doing a chilli challenge with Jamie Oliver, also note the way they say jalapeño, jah-lah-pee-nose instead of HAH-lah-pen-yose.

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx