Different Slants

Robert M. Katzman’s Integrated Turkey/Chicken Soup Recipe,

(published on August 29, 2018)

My refrigerator was empty after some travel, so I decided to carefully restock and do some cooking to both eat and freeze. Hard for a person alone to buy small enough quantities to eat because things can spoil before they are consumed. Fortunately, health foods like Coke come in convenient 12-oz. cans and have a long shelf live.

I hope I have a long shelf life.  Is this “shelf-life envy”?  Hmmmm.

Here’s the recipe of what I made yesterday:

4 regular unsmoked turkey legs,

6 chicken legs,

small bag of mini carrots,

3 large yellow onions,

4 quart boxes of chicken soup stock,

2 bunches of green onions

All gathered together in a large stainless steel soup pot (made in India) about a foot high with a vented glass cover.

Spices were: pepper, basil, parsley, Asian mixed spices, garlic, more garlic and salt.

Cut up both of the onions, removing the yellow onion’s tough skin, put in the pot with everything else. Turn gas stove on high. After boiling level is achieved, lower heat to medium.

Go read a good book.

After 2 hours (ok, occasional some stirring did occur, but not of desire), remove all ten bird legs, using a very sharp knife, cut all meat away from the bones, replacing the bones back in the pot for further cooking. Adds body to the soup, perhaps soul, too. Remove all gristle, connecting tissue and small bones and dispose of. Save the skins. Shred all meat into smaller sizes, while greedily eating the choices bits of dark turkey and chicken meat which are from heaven, replace all remaining meat and skin back in large pot.

Be certain to integrate the dark and white meat because a civilized society requires this determined attitude of equality, especially among domestic fowl. Return to your book.

About an hour later, with all freezing containers in place to received equal amounts of bird and soup for future meals, first dispose of all skin and bones, then begin filling them, leaving about half an inch room for ice expansion in the freezer.

Cover them, let them cool for about an hour on a counter, while eating a nice-sized bowl of your labor’s magic. Put all containers in freezer, careful to distribute the weight. Each frozen container will be about the size of a red brick, but will taste a lot better.

When defrosting over the next month or so, because a little spicy Katzman’s Turkey/Chicken Soup goes a long way, always watch out for sharp broken bits of bone, because those little suckers always make it through the winnowing separation effort.

I have made this hearty soup for decades, the cost is almost incidental especially when $ is an issue, and it is universally enjoyed by everyone, even conservatives, men, women , children, LGBT people, Lithuanians, people of different religions and heights, too, and when accidentally spilled, several species of dogs.

Let them lap it up. Even a dog is entitled to gourmet scraps sometimes. All of us are.

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