Chicken Soup

Happy Soupy Saturday friends !!!! It is a peaceful Saturday evening, there is nip in the air,, all 3 of us get proper rest after an eventful hectic week.. so it is time to do some leisurely cooking !! I was so occupied with office for the last couple of weeks that I have missed many  activities that is going on in my 'Kolkata Food Bloggers' Group. One of them was 'Know your Kolkata Food Blogger's' event, where it was the turn of my virtual friend Sarani. As usual, I don't know her personally, only thing that I know about her is, she blogs from   'Back to Basics', which is a collection of beautiful recipes. What I like the most about her blog is, majority of the recipes can be done very quickly, ideal for me, who do not have enough time to spend in the kitchen. Apart from that, Sarani is mother of Soh, a cute and adorable li'l boy,,and she has a great photography sense, that's all I know about her. Anyway, since I couldnot be able to try her recipe during scheduled time,  so decided to do something today. She has this simple yet  flavorful chicken soup in her blog, which immediately caught my attention. It has loads of vegetables, chicken, noodles with a hint of garlic, which all of us liked very much. Obviously done some modification here n there to suite availability of ingredients here, but the basics remain the same. It is a meal by itself, I just added a plate of fried fish along with this soup and had a fulfilling dinner. All of us were very happy after the dinner, that indicates, how yummy it was. Enough said, here goes the recipe. The original recipe is available here too.

 Ingredients

• Chicken pieces- 6
• Onion - 2, cut into chunks
• Carrot - 2,
• Raw Papaya - 1/2
• Beans - 10-12
• Spinach - a bunch
• Noodles - 1/2 pack
• Garlic Paste - 2 tsp
• Green Chilli Paste - 1 tsp
• Bayleaves - 2
• Olive Oil - 1 tbsp
• Salt n Pepper - as per taste

Dice the carrot and papaya, cut the beans half lengthwise. Pressure cook the tough vegetables along with the chicken and 4 glasses of water. I have added 1 tsp garlic paste, 1 tsp green chilli paste and 1 bay leaf as well.

Remove the chicken from the broth and shred into strips. Add 1 tbsp olive oil to the pan. Add bay leaf and black peppercorn. Then add the onion slices and fry for 2 minutes.

Add the shredded chicken with remaining garlic paste and a pinch of salt and stir fry quickly.

Now add the spinach leaves and fold into the onion, chicken mixture.

When spinach is wilted, add the boiled vegetables along with the broth. You may need to add one more glass of water at this stage.

When the soup is boiling, check for seasoning. Add boiled noodles and mix carefully.

Serve with lots of black pepper. Serve hot. Can have it with crisp toast.