When days get colder, and more covid-y, what better way to lift your spirits and warm your soul than by cooking up a great chicken soup.

We had the great pleasure of hosting two amazing cooks and authors, Alice Zaslavsky and Lisa Goldberg, as they made and shared their chicken soup recipes from their homes. They also chatted about the food that makes you feel better, how we pass family traditions and stories on when we cook as well as their wonderful new cookbooks. It was so lovely to see many of you cooking along with us! Don’t worry if you missed it as the full video of the event is now available! We’ve also included both Alice and Lisa’s recipes below.

You can make friends with salad, and Alice Zaslavsky is here to prove it. ABIA award-winning author of In Praise of Veg, Culinary Correspondent for ABC News Breakfast and ABC Radio nationally, and creator of food literacy projects like Phenomenom, she wants every home cook to feel empowered to make something delicious and share it with the people they love. Also, you might find her hiding in your pantry in little jars ‘by Alice’. That’s just the kind of friend she is.

Cookbook author Lisa Goldberg heads up Sydney’s Monday Morning Cooking Club. Since 2011, the group has published four best-selling cookbooks which document and preserve recipes from Jewish kitchens across Australia and the world, honouring and celebrating the most treasured family recipes, alongside moving stories of warmth, family, friendship, community and survival. Lisa embraces the saying ‘it’s always about the food’ – she is a self confessed fresser with an unbridled passion for eating, cooking and nurturing those around her with food.

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Lisa’s chicken soup 

Ingredients

1 kg chicken frames (bones)

250 g wings

½ whole chicken, quartered

1 carrot, peeled

1 onion

2 stems dill

2 stems parsley

2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

1 – 2 teaspoons salt (depending on whether using kosher chickens)

2 litres (8 cups) water

Utensils

8 – 10 litre stock pot with lid

Soup skimmer or large metal spoon

Large colander

Fine mesh sieve (or a clean chux cloth or muslin)

X-large bowl

Start this recipe the day before serving.

Put bones in a stockpot. Pour in enough cold water to just cover, around 2 litres. Bring to the boil. Skim off the scum that rises to the surface. Add the remaining ingredients. Partially cover and continue to cook at a light boil for 2 hours. Allow to cool slightly for 30 minutes before removing the bones and straining the soup, discarding everything except the carrot and the chicken meat.

Add salt and pepper to taste.  Allow to cool and refrigerate overnight. The next day, skim off the fat. Reheat the soup to serve, tasting for seasoning and flavour. If the flavour is not strong enough, bring to a boil and reduce to reach the desired taste, and if the flavour is too strong, add some water.

Serve within 3 days or freeze for future use.

Makes 2 litres

Alice’s Speedy Version Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

1.5 kg chicken wingettes/drumettes/wings/carcasses (whatever you’ve got)

2 medium brown onions cubed
2 medium carrots peeled and cubed
2 celery sticks sliced into 1cm pieces
2-3 garlic cloves whole

2 thumb’s worth of ginger, thickly sliced
10 white or black peppercorns
4-6 parsley and/or dill stalks (save the tops for garnish)
6L filtered water

Equipment:

Chopping board

Chef’s knife

Pressure cooker