Today is a rainy, damp day.  I'm at home alone.  I have a pot of soup simmering on the stove.  The smokey rich scent fills the kitchen.

Wait!  Smokey scent?  

Yes, let me explain.

Whenever my mother made a pot of soup, she bought a chicken and boiled it.  This made a lovely, clean, light soup, wonderful just as a broth with carrots and noodles, or cappelletti.  My grandmother often made soup differently.  She always roasted the chicken first.  One night she served it for dinner, the next day she made soup out of the carcass.  Her soup had a deeper color and flavor.

Using the carcass of an already cooked bird does the same thing for soup that browning the meat does for stew.  It adds a caramel richness and deep flavor.  The added bonus is that you actually want to eat the meat.  Frankly, soup meat is tasteless.  We never discard a carcass after a barbecue.  We pop them in the deep freeze for later.  Thanksgiving is like Carcass Christmas to me, and I've been know to sneak away from many a meal with turkey bones squirreled away in my trunk.  

When friends have a new baby, we always come visit with a meal.  Our favorite is to hot smoke a chicken.  Pull off the breast and make soup from the rest.  We bring a meal of chicken breast, and sides and soup for a future meal.

Making great soup isn't hard.  It just requires time and a few tips.  

What makes the best soup?  Any bird at all!  I've used chicken, turkey and duck.  I've used them separately and together.  After a barbecue, I sometimes can't identify which bones are which and just freeze them all together.  Chicken makes the lightest soup.  Turkey is my personal favorite.  Duck makes a strong broth which is better for cooking into risotto, couscous or gravy than as a broth.  No one has ever given me a pheasant, but I love their meat so I bet they make great soup!

Your Freezer is your Best Friend!  Most people barbecue in the hot months, not usually when you want soup.  Just pop all those bones in the freezer.  Remember to break them down first, or you'll have a huge frozen turkey that won't fit into the pot.  Remember to label the bags, too.

Be Patient.  Bones need to simmer for over 3 hours before the collagen begins to extract.  The collagen is what gives a great bowl of broth that silky, rich feeling in your mouth.  A good fowl soup should look like jelly when chilled, and that takes time.  By three hours of cooking you've gotten all the flavor, but not until four hours will you get that super richness that makes a great stock.

Careful with the Salt.  When using a pre-cooked carcass, don't salt until the end.  The bird was salted when cooked, maybe even brined or marinated so there's already salt there.  Wait until the end to salt the pot.

Here's my recipe:

Fowl Soup

Ingredients:
1 large (or 2 small) poultry carcass
1 large carrot, snapped into pieces
2 celery sticks, snapped into pieces
1 large onion, cut into quarters
12 cups of water
sage
black peppercorns
salt

Directions:
Break up the bones and place in a large stock pot, or crock pot.  Add the carrot, celery and onion.  It is not necessary to peal the onion.  The skins will give a great color to the soup.  Add about 3 quarts of water, sage (dried or fresh) and several whole peppercorns.  Using whole makes it easy to strain them out at the end.

Simmer for about 3 hours with the lid on.  Taste and salt as necessary.  The soup may still taste a little weak at this point.  Remove the lid and sinner another hour.  Strain the soup into another pot and discard all the solids.  You should be left with between 8 and 10 cups of soup.  Let cool.  

I measure my soup into freezer bags, placing 2 cups into each bag and freeze them flat on a cookie sheet.  Then the bags can be stored in the freezer stacked flat or upright.  I've found 2 cups is the amount I most often want for cooking, but you could freeze 4 cup quantities, too.

The origins of this recipe came from a chef in Philadelphia who called himself the Punk Chef.  I've tweaked it a bit.  This is truly an awesome sauce.  Feel free to tone down the heat by using different combinations of peppers.  If you replace the habaneros with a large poblano, the sauce will be much milder.  Leah prefers a combination of jalapenos and seranos for the best flavor.  When choosing a beer, choose whatever you are willing to drink because you will have three quarters of a bottle left.  Leah likes to use a winter wheat or a red ale because either pairs well with the orange juice.  You can also skip the beer and use an extra ¼ cup of OJ.

Leah’s Punk-Ass Wing Sauce 
 
Ingredients

3                      jalapenos
3                      habaneros
1 clove            garlic, minced
¼ Cup            beer
1 Cup              Franks Redhot Sauce
1/2 Cup          orange juice
3 T                  Grated ginger
                        Butter, optional

Directions
Roast the peppers on the grill or under the broiler until the skins turn brown.  Let cool slightly and rub off the charred skin.  Don’t rinse them or you will wash away all the lovely roasted flavor.  Remove the seeds and veins and mince very fine.  NOTE: This is a good time to wear food-prep gloves.  If you don’t, you run the risk of ruining your contact lenses when you take them out later!

Sweat the peppers and garlic over medium heat in a dry pan.  They should get very soft.  Some may stick to the pan, but they should not burn or brown.

Deglaze the pan with the beer.  Add the hot sauce and orange juice and simmer for 45 minutes.

Remove from heat and add the ginger.  Let it cool completely.  Once cool, add water to make it the consistency you want.

To serve, toss cooked chicken wings with the sauce, or mix the sauce with a tablespoon or two of melted butter and then toss the wings.  Melted butter will tone down the heat a bit.

This Chicken recipe is very versatile.  It's sweet and flavorful, but not spicy so it appeals to all palates.  I make it with chicken wings every year for a charity event,  We've won in competition with it on legs, too.  You could use it on parts or a whole bird.  It works well on the smoker with a fruit wood like apple or peach, but would do just as well on a grill or in the oven.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp      Herbs de Provence
1 tbsp        Lavender
1 tbsp        Dried sage
¼ cup       Garlic powder
¼ cup       Onion powder
2 tbsp       Sugar
1 tbsp        Toasted fennel seeds
1 tbsp        Toasted coriander seeds
1 ½ tsp     Black pepper
                  Oil for rubbing on the wings
                  Agave syrup for glazing

Directions:
Grind each ingredient separately to a soft powder.  Combine all the dry ingredients. This will give you a very consistent rub.

Brine the chicken wings for 30 minutes in a standard, unflavored brine. If you aren't going to brine your chicken, add 2 tbsp of salt to the rub.
NOTE: a standard  brine mixes 1 cup sugar and 1 cup salt in a gallon of water.  A whole chicken should be left in the brine for about 4 hours.  Parts or wings can be brined for about an hour.


Dry the chicken and coat with a little oil.  Sprinkle on the rub and let sit for 15 minutes at room temperature.

Place chicken on your cooking method of choice (smoker, grill, oven) and cook until chicken reaches 160 degrees.

Brush agave syrup on the chicken and cook an additional 10 minutes.  At this point temp the chicken and check the glaze.  If you would like it stickier or sweeter, add more agave.  Cook the chicken until it reaches 165 degrees.