Rotisserie Chicken: Take Three. Italian Wedding Soup

On Wednesday you had your rotisserie chicken.  Next up Caesar salad with diced left over chicken.  Next stop, Minestra Maritata, better known as Italian Wedding Soup.  I've improvised the recipe to take advantage of the left over hot dogs that we got from our farm-co-op.  You might think hotdogs as an off ingredient for this blog but these are from pasture-raised cows and taste all the better for it.  Plus it's much faster to prepare the soup.  In the conventional recipe meatballs are used.

It's been a cold and rainy June her in New England.  After putting my long sleeved shirts away a few weeks ago, I retrieved them along with some sweaters from the closet top shelf.  With the overcast skies and relative chill in the air, it's a good day for soup. 

A culinary fun fact.  The origin of the soup is Italian.  The name was miss-translated in an Ellis Island way--it is literally, Married Soup, meaning that the ingredients go well together and in well-married sort of way.  A culinary marriage made in heaven, Italian style!

Use the broth made from the chicken bones and any left over chicken scraps deemed inedible like the gristly parts.   See my broth blog entry to come :-)

chicken broth

tomatoes - I'm using the last of the jars canned last fall

diced onions

butter, ghee and or coconut oil for frying

garlic

hotdogs - diced in small pieces

spinach - washed and cut into small pieces

2 eggs

parmesan cheese - grated

creme fraiche

Saute onions and garlic.  Add chopped up hotdogs.  Add broth and chopped spinach and tomatoes.  Stir in the eggs until thin strands appear.  Add the hotdogs to the soup.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with grated cheese and/or spoon of creme fraiche.

Rotisserie Chicken: Take Two. Caesar Salad

Always spelling challenged, this blog entry taught me two new spellings:  Caesar and Rotisserie. 

Early June is true lettuce season.  Romaine is my favorite and considered one of the most nutritious.  I especially like its crunchyness.  When preparing I cut out the stems and use them for scoopy snacks they way most people use celery sticks.  Julia likes these in her lunch box with some sea salt.

A bit of history and a great culinary story.  This salad originates from Mexico and named after Casaer Cardini, an Italian immigrant working as a chef in Tijuania.  There are many variations of the story as told on Wikipedia but I like the one best told by his daughter, Rosa.  The dish was invented as a result of depleted kitchen supplies.  The improvisation made all the better with the table side preparation by the chef himself. 

For the salad

head of romaine

Parmesan Reggiano Cheese-- 2-3 ounces grated

diced left-over chicken

Croutons-optional 

For the dressing

1 table spoon apple cider vinegar

1 table spoon lemon juice

1 table spoon Parmesan cheese 

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 egg yolk

1 clove of garlic

sardines - optional

rinsed capers - instead of the sardines

This is based on the recipe from Sally Fallon's, Nourishing Traditions.

Wash, dry and slice across in bit sized pieces.  Grate Parmesan to sprinkle on top of lettuce or use a vegetable peeler for thin slices.  Combine ingredients for dressing and toss with the lettuce and chicken.  Add the optional croutons at the last minute so they won't get soggy.  

About raw eggs:

Raw egg yolks are a great source of nutrients.  We get our eggs from a farm that has pasture-raised chickens, so I am not worried about using raw egg yolks.  If you are concerned about raw eggs in general or don't have access to pastured [vs pasturized!] eggs, probably best to omit the raw eggs.  

Got Dinner? Rotisserie Chicken. Take One

You know the drill.  It's 4 or 5 o'clock.   Got Dinner?  Pick up a still-hot-from-the-oven rotisserie chicken and some baby spinach on the way home.  Once home put the chicken and any juices and bits you can scrape off the bottom of the container into a covered stove top casserole dish.   A Le Creuset if you are lucky enough to have one.  On a low flame -- just enough to keep the chicken warm and moist.  Saute some onions in another large pot that has a cover. This is much faster if you have some onions cut up and frozen.  Add a little garlic.  Add washed spinach. Baby spinach has the double advantage of tasting better and you don't have the tedious and time consuming task of removing the stems.  Cover the pot. Within minutes the incredible-shrinking-spinach is revealed.  Ready to taste with the addition of vinegar, butter, lemon zest or just salt and pepper.

Rotisserie Chicken Take Two.  Caesar salad with left over chicken

Rotisserie Chicken Take Three.  Minestra Maritata  aka Wedding Soup with chicken broth