My friend Diabolique posted an entry today in which she voiced her need for the healing powers of a good soup. Seeing that there are still quite a few weeks of winter to go, I have decided to post the following recipe that Miss P and myself swear by.

I seek neither money nor accolades for posting this one. I'm just a caring, sharing, 90's sort of right-wing capitalist. Shut up.

I'm about to break sworn secrecy and give you guys the following recipe that was handed to my Jewish buddy Graham by his grandmother. Oy Vey.

I've altered it to make it easier for us gentiles, and why shouldn't I? It's not as though a crack team of swat-trained rabbis is going to burst through your window and kick your butt for not using chicken-frames is it?

Don't even ask what a chicken-frame is - you neither need, nor do you want to know. If you do know what a chicken-frame is then you're already Jewish, you gave me this recipe and your name is probably Graham. Stop reading everything I write buddy, you're creeping me out.

Okay, here we go.

Ingredients:

1.5 litres of Campbells Liquid Chicken Stock
6 Chicken Drumsticks (as opposed to, say, "yak drumsticks")
5 carrots
4 sticks of celery
5 cloves of garlic
Freshly ground black pepper
Secret Ingredient (to be revealed in the directions)
1 two litre box of chardonnay

Preparation and Cooking time: 2 Hours

Directions:

Get a really big fucking pot. The sort that you could cook your own head in. You don't own one though do you? This is because you're reading this on LJ and statistically speaking, you're probably a male in your mid-twenties; the only pot you own was bought on credit last week because you're on the dole. And you finished all of it yesterday while watching "Judge Judy".

This is where the wine comes in:

Open it. Pour yourself a big glass and drink it in one go. Refill it. Walk next door to your neighbor's house, knock on the door and offer them a glass of wine in exchange for the use of a large pot. They will politely refuse and give you the pot simply to get you off their doorstep. No one likes being woken at two am by a drunken sick hippie.

Pour the 1.5 litres of Chicken Stock into the pot and slowly bring it to a high simmer. Resist the urge to turn the gas up to ten because you're frozen from walking barefoot outside at two in the morning while half-pissed on cheap chardonnay. Let it simmer.

Remove all the skin from the chicken drumsticks and add them to the pot just as they are, bones and all. Put the skin aside - we'll think of a fun use for that later.

Chop the garlic, carrots and the celery as finely as possible. Use a razor-blade if possible. Don't lie, there's one on your coffee-table. Put it away when you're finished just in case the neighbors call the cops on your scary ass first thing in the morning. Add the slivers to the pot.

Scull another glass of cheap, shitty chardonnay. You're worth it.

Now it's time for the secret ingredient, drumroll please ...

Ginger. Yes, you read that correctly. Take a huge knob of ginger the size of your thumb and cut it as finely as possible. You remember what a thumb is, right? It's what you had to use to get to the Byron Bay Blues Festival last year because you spent all your money subscribing to www.judge-judy/nudiepics/fapfapfap.com

Add the ginger to the pot and go nuts grinding fresh black-pepper into it. Don't use anything other than black-pepper you've ground yourself - nothing else works.

Don't add any salt, there's already enough in the chicken stock. Too much salt is incredibly bad for you and will probably give you ... hang on ..., yeah, knock yourself out, throw in a shitload of salt.

Ignore the last bad joke about the salt and pour some more chardonnay.

Let the whole pot simmer for the next hour and a half and finish the booze - nothing says "hearty appetite" more than "Jessus (hic), I'm so pisshed I'm lostt in my own kitschen".

After ninety minutes of simmering, the chicken will have melted off the bones and almost disintegrated. Remove the bones from the pot, add some more black pepper and give it a good stir.

Serve with freshly baked, buttery bread rolls and enjoy.

Now grab the bowl of chicken skin and turn "Judge Judy" back on. Dispose of chicken skins immediately afterwards and then seek therapy.

Bon Appetit,

SD
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