Chicken Tortilla Soup

My birthday is this coming Wednesday, number 54 btw, and I want to celebrate it with two of my favorites soups. One of them is Hungarian Mushroom and the other is my Chicken Tortilla Soup.

The Chicken Tortilla is spicily delicious, hearty, and chock full of vegetables. But my favorite thing about this soup is the colors. It shouts "I'm Mexican!!!". The red of the tomatoes, El Pato, and chili powder, the yellow corn, the white hominy, the green chili peppers, black beans, the light color of the chicken chunks, finished off by the cilantro, avocado, and jack cheese results in a kaleidoscope of chromas. With homemade tortilla chips and cheese on top it is one of my favorites.

I often use a whole chicken that I boil and make use of the de-boned meat and the stock used to boil the chicken. I like using the different cuts of chicken so I'm not limited to the drier breast meat but get to use the moister thigh and leg meat along with tossing in a whole wing drumette or two. To flavor the stock I'll toss in a bay leaf or two along with some dried basil and oregano. Salt and fresh ground pepper is always included. The whole chicken approach is when I'm doubling the recipe below, if you need only 4-6 servings then the recipe below is the ticket. The whole chicken and homemade broth approach is detailed below the METHOD.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 onion chopped
• 3 minced garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 (28oz) can crushed tomatoes
• 1 (7.75oz) can of El Pato Mexican Tomato Sauce
• 1 (10.5oz) can chicken broth
• 1.25 cups water
• 1 cup cooked whole corn kernels (Trader Joe's)
• 1 cup white hominy
• 1 (4oz) can chopped green chili peppers
• 1 (15 oz) can black beans rinsed and drained
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 boneless chicken breast halves (cooked and cut into bite sized pieces)
• crushed tortilla chips, sliced avocado
• shredded Jack cheese, chopped green onion

METHOD

1. In a medium stock pot, heat oil over medium heat and saute the onions for 10-15 minutes until tender. Add garlic and saute an additional 2 minutes.
2. Stir in the chili powder, oregano, tomatoes, El Pato, broth and water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Stir in the corn, hominy, chills, beans, cilantro and chicken. Simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Serve soup in bowls topped with tortilla chips, cheese, avocado and green onions.

When I make a large pot like the one from one of my crock pots I do two things differently 1) I double everything and 2) For the chicken and broth I use a whole chicken boiled in a stock pot large enough to hold the whole chicken and enough water to cover the chicken with water plus another inch over the bird. To the pot I add a couple of bay leaves, a tablespoon of dried basil, a tablespoon of dried oregano, salt and pepper. I boil the chicken for 40 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot and put it aside on a plate or platter to cool. Use the broth as the soup broth in step 2 above but double the quantity. When the chicken has cooled enough to work with begin pulling the legs, thighs and wings off the bird. This should be pretty easy since it is fully cooked. Remove all the skin and discard. Debone the chicken by pulling all the meat from the bones. You can either leave the meat in larger pieces or dice smaller, I prefer larger pieces. Presto, you have your chicken called for in step 3 above.