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ISAAC'S FAMOUS CHICKEN SOUP
07/11/19 — Ada Broussard
Recipe and Photos by Isaac Winburne and Heydon Hatcher
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This soup is FAMOUS!
Isaac’s Famous Chicken Soup
Serves about 6 / Cooking time: 2 easy hours
This is one of the first recipes that Isaac made me. He’d been lauded often by friends as a great cook, and I had never seen it in action. So one Sunday about two years ago, we decided we were going to cook a good, comforting meal “together”. He popped his head into the fridge, took stock of pre-existing ingredients, and had immediately formulated a recipe. This cooking sensibility of how to make a delicious and casual meal without even peeking at a recipe evades me, so he obviously took and has taken the helm in all of our cooking escapades. He swept through the market eyeing one thing, checking firmness and smelling another, and, voila, he had all of the ingredients to make what we now call “Isaac’s Famous Chicken Soup”.
There have been many, many versions of this with certain garnish and ingredients altering depending on what is available at the market stand, so keep your mind open when you read and digest this recipe. It's meant to be open to interpretation and feeling. If cilantro is out of season, grab some dill. If there aren’t jalapeños, use serranos. We used both kinds of hot peppers this past weekend because it felt right. This soup works as a wonderful weekend hangover cure with an exorbitant and detoxifying amount of spice. We like to sweat it out over here at our house. So be liberal with those hot peppers - summer is the season!
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Amber ale and neon lights. Photo by Isaac Winburne and Heydon Hatcher.
-1 rotisserie chicken
-4 JBG onions
-2 to 3 JBG jalapeños and 1 JBG serrano (up to your spice whims)
-2 48 oz of Free Range Chicken Broth
-1 can of Austin Amber beer from Independence Brewery (or any Amber of your choice)
-10 medium to small sized JBG carrots
-5 medium to large JBG yellow squashes
-5 medium to large JBG zucchini
-Handful of JBG cilantro
-A lime or two for garnish
Shred the chicken with ample chicken skin shreds to add fat and deliciousness, put aside for later. Put excess juice/chicken fat from the bottom of the rotisserie chicken container into the pot that you will use to cook.
Extra flavor step: Put bones from rotisserie chicken into a smaller pot and pour some chicken broth into it. Put it on medium heat and have it cooking throughout the cooking process for extra flavorful zing. As the broth cooks down over the two hours, add more chicken broth as needed (usually 4 or 5 times/splashes).
Chop the onions into crescent moons and put into the soup pot - which has a base of rotisserie chicken fat already. Finely chop the hot peppers and add. Sprinkle a healthy amount of salt and pepper over the onion and pepper mix. Turn on the stove at low heat, and get this mixture to start “releasing flavor". Stir every now and then, and add more salt and pepper as needed. Do this for about 5 minutes.
Throw in about 48 ounces of chicken broth into the onion/pepper mixture and turn it up to medium-high heat. Pour in most of your amber beer of choice, and take a swig yourself.
Then come the carrots. Peel them (this supposedly helps with bitterness) or not. This time around we kept them unpeeled and chopped them into big chunks. Everyone loves a big hunk of carrot in their lives. Throw these guys into the pot. Lightly stir ingredients in the pot intermittently.
Prepare and chop the squash and zucchini into big chunks (see picture for reference). You want an equal amount of both. Keep these separate from the soup mixture as you want to add them later. Grab a handful of cilantro and coarsely chop it, too.
Put in shredded chicken after the broth has been simmering for about 50 minutes to an hour. Make sure the carrots are soft before you add the chicken. Add about 36 ounces of chicken broth at this point, and toss in the chopped cilantro… keeping a little bit aside for garnish.
Shortly after the chicken has been tossed in, add squash and zucchini slices and some more salt. Put the top on the pot to encapsulate the flavors and steam the veggies that were just added. Let the squash and zucchini stay at the top. After 10 or 15 minutes start lightly stirring ingredients, making sure that everything gets “dunked”. Let all these ingredients cook for about another 40 minutes together. **Add “extra flavor step” broth at the very end** Taste test it... you don't want the squash and zucchini to get too mushy. Garnish with fresh cilantro and a slice or two of lime.
Enjoy with some friends (and maybe some Texas Keeper Cider Grafter Rose?) for maximum pleasure and fun. This soup stores well and tastes even better when you reheat it the next day, especially if you’ve put a lot of hot peppers in it. Bon appétit!
This soup is FAMOUS!
Isaac’s Famous Chicken Soup
Serves about 6 / Cooking time: 2 easy hours
This is one of the first recipes that Isaac made me. He’d been lauded often by friends as a great cook, and I had never seen it in action. So one Sunday about two years ago, we decided we were going to cook a good, comforting meal “together”. He popped his head into the fridge, took stock of pre-existing ingredients, and had immediately formulated a recipe. This cooking sensibility of how to make a delicious and casual meal without even peeking at a recipe evades me, so he obviously took and has taken the helm in all of our cooking escapades. He swept through the market eyeing one thing, checking firmness and smelling another, and, voila, he had all of the ingredients to make what we now call “Isaac’s Famous Chicken Soup”.
There have been many, many versions of this with certain garnish and ingredients altering depending on what is available at the market stand, so keep your mind open when you read and digest this recipe. It's meant to be open to interpretation and feeling. If cilantro is out of season, grab some dill. If there aren’t jalapeños, use serranos. We used both kinds of hot peppers this past weekend because it felt right. This soup works as a wonderful weekend hangover cure with an exorbitant and detoxifying amount of spice. We like to sweat it out over here at our house. So be liberal with those hot peppers - summer is the season!
Amber ale and neon lights. Photo by Isaac Winburne and Heydon Hatcher.
-1 rotisserie chicken
-4 JBG onions
-2 to 3 JBG jalapeños and 1 JBG serrano (up to your spice whims)
-2 48 oz of Free Range Chicken Broth
-1 can of Austin Amber beer from Independence Brewery (or any Amber of your choice)
-10 medium to small sized JBG carrots
-5 medium to large JBG yellow squashes
-5 medium to large JBG zucchini
-Handful of JBG cilantro
-A lime or two for garnish
Shred the chicken with ample chicken skin shreds to add fat and deliciousness, put aside for later. Put excess juice/chicken fat from the bottom of the rotisserie chicken container into the pot that you will use to cook.
Extra flavor step: Put bones from rotisserie chicken into a smaller pot and pour some chicken broth into it. Put it on medium heat and have it cooking throughout the cooking process for extra flavorful zing. As the broth cooks down over the two hours, add more chicken broth as needed (usually 4 or 5 times/splashes).
Chop the onions into crescent moons and put into the soup pot - which has a base of rotisserie chicken fat already. Finely chop the hot peppers and add. Sprinkle a healthy amount of salt and pepper over the onion and pepper mix. Turn on the stove at low heat, and get this mixture to start “releasing flavor". Stir every now and then, and add more salt and pepper as needed. Do this for about 5 minutes.
Throw in about 48 ounces of chicken broth into the onion/pepper mixture and turn it up to medium-high heat. Pour in most of your amber beer of choice, and take a swig yourself.
Then come the carrots. Peel them (this supposedly helps with bitterness) or not. This time around we kept them unpeeled and chopped them into big chunks. Everyone loves a big hunk of carrot in their lives. Throw these guys into the pot. Lightly stir ingredients in the pot intermittently.
Prepare and chop the squash and zucchini into big chunks (see picture for reference). You want an equal amount of both. Keep these separate from the soup mixture as you want to add them later. Grab a handful of cilantro and coarsely chop it, too.
Put in shredded chicken after the broth has been simmering for about 50 minutes to an hour. Make sure the carrots are soft before you add the chicken. Add about 36 ounces of chicken broth at this point, and toss in the chopped cilantro… keeping a little bit aside for garnish.
Shortly after the chicken has been tossed in, add squash and zucchini slices and some more salt. Put the top on the pot to encapsulate the flavors and steam the veggies that were just added. Let the squash and zucchini stay at the top. After 10 or 15 minutes start lightly stirring ingredients, making sure that everything gets “dunked”. Let all these ingredients cook for about another 40 minutes together. **Add “extra flavor step” broth at the very end** Taste test it... you don't want the squash and zucchini to get too mushy. Garnish with fresh cilantro and a slice or two of lime.
Enjoy with some friends (and maybe some Texas Keeper Cider Grafter Rose?) for maximum pleasure and fun. This soup stores well and tastes even better when you reheat it the next day, especially if you’ve put a lot of hot peppers in it. Bon appétit!
