Chicken soup in the United States is usually a soup made by bringing to a boil and then simmering chicken parts and/or bones in water, with various vegetables and flavorings. The classic American chicken soup consists of a clear broth, often served with small pieces of chicken or vegetables, or with noodles or dumplings, or grains such as rice and barley. Chicken soup has also acquired the reputation of a folk remedy for colds and flus, and in many countries is considered a comfort food.
Traditionally, American chicken soup was prepared using old hens too tough and stringy to be roasted or cooked for a short time. In modern times, these fowl are difficult to come by, and broiler chickens (young chickens suitable for broiling or roasting) are often used to make soup; soup hens or fowl are to be preferred when available.
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Several terms are used when referring to chicken soups:
Chicken soup has long been touted as a form of folk medicine to treat symptoms of the common cold and related conditions. In 2000, scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha studied the effect of chicken soup on the inflammatory response in vitro. They found that some components of the chicken soup inhibit neutrophil migration, which may have an anti-inflammatory effect that could hypothetically lead to temporary ease from symptoms of illness.[1] However, since these results have been obtained from purified cells (and directly applied), the diluted soup in vivo effect is debatable. The New York Times reviewed the University of Nebraska study, among others, in 2007 and concluded that "none of the research is conclusive, and it's not known whether the changes measured in the laboratory really have a meaningful effect on people with cold symptoms."[2]
In Bulgaria, chicken soup is often seasoned with lemon juice or vinegar.
Many Chinese soups are based on chicken broth. Typical Chinese chicken soup is made from old hens and are seasoned with ginger, spring onions, black pepper, soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. A more elaborate version can be made from freshly killed old hen and various herbs such as ginseng, dried goji, and old ginger root. The soup is then boiled for hours. In Taiwan-style chicken soup dried jujube fruits, tea, and other various herbs also sometimes added. The Korean samgyetang bears a similar resemblance to Taiwanese soup, but it is lighter in color and contains glutinous rice.
Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, is known for a version of chicken soup called ajiaco. Along with chicken, ajiaco typically includes sweetcorn, several types of potatoes, avocado, capers, an herb called guascas, and is served with a dollop of cream.
Sancocho de Gallina is another popular dish throughout Colombia and in neighboring countries. This is a broth that includes entire pieces of (often rather tough) soup hen on the bone with large pieces of plantain, potato, cassava and/or other vegetables. A bowl of Sancocho is usually an entire meal. (Other Colombian sancochos include beef and fish-based broths prepared and served similarly). There are Region, as in Medellin - Antioquia, that some people enjoy Sancocho with lemon
The Danish hønsekødssuppe is traditionally served with small dumplings, meatballs and cubed vegetables.[3]
The French serve chicken-based forms of bouillon and consommé. Typical French seasoning for chicken soup includes: bay leaves, fresh thyme, dry white wine and garlic.
In Germany homemade chicken soup typically consists of chicken broth, to which spices and semolina dumplings or Spätzle noodles are added. Another dish made with chicken broth, pieces of chicken, boiled vegetables, and spices is known as Hühnereintopf, meaning chicken stew. Alternatively, homemade noodles may be added to the chicken broth, without vegetables, and with only pickling spice and salt and pepper added to it.
In Greece, chicken soup is most commonly made in the avgolemono ("egg-lemon") fashion, wherein beaten eggs mixed with lemon are added to a broth slowly so that the mixture heats up without curdling, also adding rice or pasta like kritharáki ("little barley;" orzo), resulting in a thicker texture; it is a traditional remedy for colds, stomach aches, and hangovers.
Hungarian chicken soup is a clear soup, a consommé, called even Ùjházi chicken soup.[4] A consommé with entire pieces of chicken, chicken liver and heart, with chunky vegetables and spices like whole black peppercorn, bay leaves, salt and ground black pepper. The vegetables boiled along with the pieces of chicken are usually carrots, celeriac, parsley root[5] and parsnip. Soup vermicelli, semolina dumplings or thin Spätzle noodles or small dumplings are also added to the soup. Even other vegetables may be used, such as green peas, a whole tomato and whole onions boiled along with the soup, mushrooms, asparagus, celery, green pepper, cauliflower, kohlrabi, green beans or parsley, in different combinations.
In Indonesia chicken soup might appear as sayur sop, vegetable and chicken broth soup that contains chicken pieces, potato, green beans, carrot, celery, and fried shallot.[6] Another chicken soup variant commonly found across the country is soto ayam;[7] a turmeric yellow spicy chicken soup with vegetables and noodle or vermicelli, served with steamed rice, pieces of lontong or ketupat.[8]
Chicken soup is a traditional dish of the Jewish kitchen. The 12th-century rabbi and physician Maimonides touted the benefits of chicken soup to one's health.[9]
Ashkenazi Jews living in shtetls were often very poor, but chicken-raising required few resources.[9] Most Jewish families would try to acquire at least one chicken for Shabbat and try to make the most of it, using as much of the chicken as they could. Dishes such as chopped liver, helzel (stuffed chicken neck), gribenes (crackling made from fat and skin), pupik (roasted gizzards), p'tcha (chicken feet) were born of poverty-driven necessity. Chicken fat was rendered into schmaltz and used for cooking. The remaining carcass was used to prepare the soup.
The soup is prepared with herbs like parsley and fresh dill or thyme, was often served with kneidlach (matzah balls), kreplach (dumplings), lokshen (flat egg noodles), or mandlen (Shkedei Marak in Israel) (soup "nuts"). A traditional garnish was unlaid chicken eggs, which were taken from a hen and boiled in the soup.[10] Modern health standards make these difficult to obtain now.
In Italy, chicken soup is often served with pasta, in such dishes as cappelletti in brodo, tortellini in brodo and passatelli.
In Japan, chicken soup is known as Torijiru.[11] Typically it starts with dashi, which is made from boiling konbu (kelp) and katsuobushi (dried skipjack tuna flakes), and not by boiling the chicken (whole chicken is not typically available in Japanese supermarkets). After the dashi is prepared, pieces of boneless chicken thigh meat are usually used and combined with vegetables like daikon radish, carrot, burdock, konnyaku, welsh onion, mushrooms, potatoes, and taro root. At the end, different seasonings are added depending on the region of the country or type of soup. It could be a miso-based soup or soy sauce-based. Cooking sake, mirin, salt, and vinegar are also used with the soy sauce or miso. The pork equivalent called Butajiru is more popular than the chicken-based soup.
Samgyetang is a Korean chicken soup with Korean ginseng, dried jujube fruits, garlic, ginger, glutinous rice, and sometimes other medicinal herbs. It is held to be not only a cure for physical ailments but a preventer of sickness. Baeksuk, which is the Korean counterpart to the chicken noodle soup of Western culture, is also popular among Koreans for its power to cure minor illnesses such as a cold. While the chicken noodle soup, as the name suggests, has some noodles in it, quite often Baeksuk does not contain any noodles. Baeksuk resembles Chinese-style chicken soup.
Caldo de pollo, also known as Consome de Pollo, is a common Latin-American soup made with whole chicken pieces instead of chopped or shredded chicken, and large cuts of vegetables, such as half-slices of potatoes and whole leaves of cabbage. Another variation of chicken soup is caldo tlalpeño which is garnished with chopped avocado, white cheese, and a chipotle chile.
Western style chicken soup in the Philippines is called sopas (literally, soup). While there are many variations in the recipe, it usually contains chicken strips in broth, onions, vegetables (mainly carrots, cabbage and celery), and macaroni noodles. It is cooked with evaporated milk to give it a richer flavor. Sopas is normally associated with the cold, rainy season in the Philippines, and may thus be regarded as local comfort food.
Oriental style chicken soup (like mami) normally are ones served with sliced chicken, broth, noodles, chopped vegetables, and resemble their Chinese counterparts.
While they are normally considered as dishes, tinola and sinampalukang manok (a variety of sinigang) may be considered as soups in their own right. Tinola has chicken cuts in broth, with ginger, chayote, and chili pepper leaves. Sinampalukang manok is basically just a chicken version of sinigang, but here the meat is browned first before being boiled in the water.
The Polish chicken soup. It is commonly served with fine noodles and sometimes ground almonds in their broth called rosół: this was probably the basis for a form of mini croutons popular in Israel, known as soup almonds (in Hebrew "Shkedei Marak" שקדיי מרק-).
Chicken soup is known as canja, a chicken broth prepared with rice or pasta and shredded chicken meat. It is believed to help a person overcome colds and digestive problems, among other mild forms of sickness.
In most regions of Romania, chicken soup consists of a clear, strained chicken and vegetable broth, in which extremely fine noodles have been added. A different version, technically not qualifying as soup[says who?], uses pieces of chicken and pieces of boiled vegetables and is seasoned with an egg yolk and double cream mixture and lemon.
Traditionally, chicken soup (or broth) in Britain is a clear and watery soup with chunky vegetables (such as carrot, celery and onion), chicken, salt and pepper. However, a thick, creamy variety called cream of chicken soup, which may not contain any vegetable pieces (depending on the recipe), is more popular today. A distinct version from Scotland that has become popular throughout the U.K. is cock-a-leekie soup, a clear, thin broth of shredded chicken and leeks.
In the United States and Canada, chicken soup often has noodles or rice in it, thus giving it its common name of "chicken noodle soup." The term may have been coined in a commercial for the Campbell Soup Company in the 1930s. The original 21 varieties of Campbell's condensed soup featured a "chicken soup with noodles", but when it was advertised on the Amos 'n' Andy radio show in the 1930s by a slip of the tongue the soup was referred to as "chicken noodle soup"; Campbell's was preparing to discontinue the soup due to low sales. After the broadcast, letters began pouring in asking for Chicken noodle soup. Campbell's then changed the name of its soup. Several variations on chicken noodle (usually with the pasta in various shapes such as "ABCs" or stars) have made it one of Campbell's best-selling products.
The chicken flavor of the soup is most potent when the chicken is simmered in water with salt and only a few vegetables, such as a mirepoix of onion, carrots, and celery. Variations on the flavor are gained by adding root vegetables such as parsnip, potato, sweet potato and celery root, herbs such as parsley, dill, other vegetables such as zucchini, whole garlic cloves or tomatoes and black pepper. The soup should be brought slowly to a boil and then simmered in a covered pot on a very low flame for one to three hours, adding water if necessary. A clearer broth is achieved by skimming the film of congealed fat off the top of the soup as it is cooking, first bringing the chicken to boil from a pot of cold water and discarding the water before continuing, or straining it through a strainer or cheesecloth. Saffron or turmeric are sometimes added as a yellow colorant.
Chicken soup can be a relatively low fat food: fat can be removed by chilling the soup after cooking and skimming the layer of congealed fat from the top.[12] A study determined that "prolonged cooking of a bone in soup increases the calcium content of the soup when cooked at an acidic, but not at a neutral pH".[13]