Philosophizing About Food With Francine: Chicken Vegetable Soup

by Francine Black

With autumn hitting the calendar, it’s a great day for making a chicken vegetable soup full of flavor and good-for-us vegetables. 

I think everyone has their favorite method of preparing a soup and there’s certainly nothing wrong with tossing your vegetables and whatever protein you choose into a big pot with a few quarts of water, letting it bubble away merrily, and calling it good. Of course, it is very good! 

We can, however, take that soup up a few notches by starting with a “fond” (a nasal sounding French culinary word meaning base or foundation). A fond is created by exposing our protein to high heat causing the browning which is called the Maillard reaction. 

Wonder of wonders, this reaction causes moisture to evaporate, browning of the meat and hence bits to stick to the bottom of the pan which brown as well. The result is a substantial production of flavor that would be lost with the boiling method. (It must be said that scorching or burning the protein is neither healthy nor good tasting at all, so this pot bears watching!). 

Following the creation of the fond, I introduced the mirepoix to the fond and as everything heated, gently this time, its moisture deglazed the beautifully browned chicken and bits at the bottom of the pot creating a most delicious broth and a terrific base for the rest of the additions to our soup. 

  Just as an aside, as you can see, I used chicken thighs with skin and bones still intact. The skin and bones add a great deal of flavor but also quite a bit of fat,  so if you try this method, you might want to skim off most of that fat as I do.

Enjoy, dear friends!   

High in the mountains above Bally, where the dense groves of treetops seem to touch the sky, isFrancine Black, Boyertown’s own version of chef Julia Child. Her daily activities reflect the things she most values: family and friends, music, and lovingly prepared food.High in the mountains above Bally, where the dense groves of treetops seem to touch the sky, isFrancine Black, Boyertown’s own version of chef Julia Child. Her daily activities reflect the things she most values: family and friends, music, and lovingly prepared food.

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