Chicken Potato Soup

This recipe isn’t from Gordon Ramsay, it’s actually my recipe. I’ve incorporated much of what I know about Gordon Ramsay’s cooking into the recipe. I prepared this for dinner last night since I’ve been feeling a little under the weather lately and Chicken Soup does a body good. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

• a few sprigs of thyme
• 1 or 2 carrots (peeled and chopped)
• 1 golden potato (peeled and chopped into 1/2 cubes)
• 1 boneless skinless chicken breast (chopped into 1/2 inch cubes)
• 1 or 2 stalks of celery (chopped)
• 1 small onion (diced)
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (minced)
• olive oil (a few good glugs)
• 7 cups chicken stock (or broth)
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Add olive oil to large stock pot and heat. Add onion to pot and cook while stirring for a couple of minutes, add chicken, garlic, and thyme (separating leaves from stems. Cook chicken and onions, stirring occasionally until the chicken is opaque and onions are translucent.

Add chicken stock to pan and the rest of the ingredients except for the salt and pepper. Bring to boil then simmer on medium low for 20-30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Gordon Ramsay made this soup in a competition against the owner/head chef of Clubway 41. Clubway 41 had a broccoli soup which consisted of 20 different ingredients, whereas Gordon Ramsay’s broccoli soup consisted of just 5! This soup really only contains 3 ingredients, should you choose to not count water and garnish as ingredients; “most importantly, this soup actually tastes of broccoli”!

Chef Ramsay has since expanded on this recipe to include goat cheese and walnuts. I’ve tasted the simpler version of this soup from Kitchen Nightmares and I can’t wait to try it with the two extra ingredients, it looks fabulous and my mouth is watering from writing this article!

There is a video at the end of the article if you would prefer to watch Gordon Ramsay prepare his Broccoli Soup.

Ingredients:

• 1 large or two medium broccoli clusters (as fresh as possible)
• Salt (3 tsp.)
• Ground Black Pepper (4-5 turns on the grind wheel)
• Water
• Olive Oil

if you want to make the fancy version in the video, you’ll also need two more ingredients:

• Goat Cheese (2 slices per bowl)
• Walnuts (about 5 per bowl)

Cooking Gordon Ramsay’s Broccoli Soup:

Bring water to a boil in a large stock pot. Add a large pinch of salt (1 – 1 1/2 Tbsp.). Add broccoli and boil rapidly.

You will want to slice your goat cheese at this point if you’re making the fancy version. Dip the knife into the boiling hot water before each slice for even smooth cuts. Cut two slices of goat cheese per bowl being served. After cutting, use the hot smooth side of your knife to smooth one side of the cheese slices for appearance.

Your broccoli is finished cooking when you can pierce it with little or no effort. Remove the stock pan from the stove burner. DO NOT POUR THE WATER OUT! Use a slotted spoon to add broccoli to a blender but be careful because it’s boiling hot! Pour enough of the water left over from cooking the broccoli to fill the blender half way. Add a pinch (or more) of salt. Use several pulses on your blender to break the broccoli up and then puree for several seconds.

If you are making the fancy version, add five walnuts to the bottom of a shallow bowl and then place pieces of goat cheese on top of them.

Pour soup into shallow bowl. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and serve at once! Delicious!

Please leave comments and let me know how this turns out for you.