Food: The best
chicken soup in the U.S.?
UNITED
PRESS INTERNATIONAL
WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- If you type Jewish Chicken Soup
into Google's search box, up pop 89,300 entries. Some of them use chicken soup
as a starting point for nostalgic or philosophical ruminations upon the Jewish
experience. But the majority offers what each claims to be the absolute, the
supreme, the ultimate recipe for this liquid comfort. How to choose among them?
Before you decide, consider TV chef Jeffrey Nathan's choice.
He has just picked a winner.
With a little help from his friends, Nathan, author of
"Adventures in Jewish Cooking" (Clarkson Potter) and host of PBS's
"New Jewish Cuisine," was judging the Shabbat Across America Chicken
Soup Challenge in New York Tuesday. David G. Marwell, the director of the
Museum of Jewish Heritage, Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's Borough president,
Arthur Schwartz, host of WOR radio's "Arthur Schwartz with Food
Talk," kosher cookbook author Helen Nash, and Michael Steinhardt,
philanthropist and hedge fund manager, sipped and gurgled alongside him.
Chicken soup, Nathan said, was not like chopped liver. It
was something, "not even Mr. Atkins could say we are not supposed to eat.
Everyone can eat chicken soup."
He had sifted through the 500 or so recipes that arrived
after the announcement of the competition ("It felt like 10,000!")
and narrowed the entries down to five. At 8:30 a.m., the finalists arrived to
take up their positions in the kitchen of Abigael's, the high-end kosher
restaurant on Broadway in New York City co-owned by Nathan, who is executive
chef. At nine o'clock they began cooking. They were to be out of the kitchen at
12:30 sharp.
There was Gail Barzilay, deputy director of the Israeli
Ministry of Tourism's New York office, the mother of two grown daughters. Her
recipe, she claimed, was the result of her lifelong love of cooking, creating
and perfecting recipes. There was Veronica Gold, an assistant professor of
education at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., who is the mother of a New
York City financier, a nutrition major at New York University, and a
15-year-old high school student. An advertisement for the power of chicken
soup, when not cooking this and more for her scientist husband and
high-schooler, she can be found tap dancing, power-walking, kickboxing, fencing
and doing aerobics, one hopes not all at once.
Rosely Himmelstein of New York shows more of the
conventional chicken soup image: grandmother of two, she plays the piano,
needlepoints and cooks. She says her recipe ingredients include "a little
family, a little friends, and my own innovations." Washington, D.C.-born
Paula Rochelle-Levy, who now resides in Santa Monica, Calif., is a
psychotherapist, a teacher, author of "Dancing with the Divine: Prayers
and Meditations of Movement & Stillness," a yoga dancer teacher and
artist.
Jerry Greenberg was the only male. Born in Brooklyn, he came
from Belmont, Calif., where he is a retired 40-year veteran of the computer
industry, most recently chief executive officer of Open Source Development Lab.
His chicken soup has a basis in both the Sephardic and Ashkenazic traditions.
His daughter is the rabbi of the Brownsville, Texas, Jewish community.
They competed in this 8th annual contest, run in
collaboration with the National Jewish Outreach Program, for a seven-night trip
for two to Israel where they would spend time at the country's first kosher
cooking academy. The contest was also to draw notice to the Shabbat Across
America on March 12, when tens of thousands of Jews will throw open the doors
of over 700 synagogues in the United States and Canada in an effort to bring in
members of the Jewish community not usually found in synagogues on Friday
nights.
"Eating," says Nathan, "is an important part
of being Jewish. Chicken soup is a major staple." He was looking for a
version whose basic flavor of vegetables and chicken was not impaired by MSG or
interlopers like meat, noodles or dumplings. There were so many different
variations, he said, with ingredients dependant on where you originally came
from, "and what your mother made, what your grandmother made."
And the winner? You might say she proved that even in a blind
tasting, an essential ingredient of Jewish Chicken Soup is the grandmother
touch.
Said Richard Dukas, spokesman for the National Jewish
Outreach Program of winner Rosely Himmelstein of New York's Upper West Side,
"Yes, a grandmother. But hip!"
Here's her recipe.
2 quarts of chicken broth
1 chicken (about 3-4 pounds), quartered (I prefer a regular
chicken to a fowl); rinsed
1 large carrot, peeled and cup up
1 large onion, peeled and cup up
1 stalk celery
1 leek, white and light green parts only; washed well
1 parsnip, peeled and cut up
1 parsley root, with greens attached
1 sweet potato, peeled
a handful of dill (about 3-4 stems)
1 small rutabaga, peeled and cut up
a few sprigs of cilantro (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Put chicken broth in pot; bring to boil. Add chicken. Return
to boil; lower heat. Gently simmer uncovered for 1 hour. Add the rest of the
ingredients. Simmer for one-half hour more; stir occasionally. Skim fat from
top.
Pour into bowls; into each add a slice of carrot and a sprig
of cilantro.
If storing, let soup cool before refrigerating. When cold,
remove the fat that rises to the surface. ("I keep this fat," says
Rosely; "I use it for matzoh balls.")
Use soup within 2-3 days, or store in freezer.
"When the soup is done, I love to eat the boiled
chicken -- with horseradish, Dijon mustard, and a sour pickle. If I don't eat
the chicken right away, I refrigerate it and make chicken salad the next
day," Rosely says.
CHICKEN BROTH (makes about 2 quarts)
2 pounds of chicken (I use wings & back, usually)
1 onion, studded with 4 whole cloves
3 garlic cloves
1 carrot, peeled
1 bay leaf
1 celery stalk
1 leek
Combine all ingredients with 10 cups of water. Bring to
boil. Simmer over medium heat for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
Cool, then strain.
If not using immediately, refrigerate (for up to 3 days) or
freeze.
To find out how to participate in Shabbat Across America,
log onto njop.org