Chicken Soup as a stir fry? Yup, that’s the one. Of course, I’m sure a zillion questions are coming to your mind as you try to picture this:, with the main one being, “why?” Why change a classic soup, arguably the best cure for the common cold, and do it as a stir fry? Well, that’s not exactly it.
I’m doing this because I was asked. No, no one came to me and said, “Oh masterful chef, please tarnish a classic dish.” Here’s what happened: As I mentioned a few weeks ago in my New Salad entry on the blog, I do classes at the D’Amour Cancer Center in Springfield, for groups of women going through breast cancer treatment. Instead of the usual class, Chris Carpenter, who runs the Rays of Hope program, asked me and two other chefs to do a round-robin kind of thing. I’ll have 30 minutes to greet people, cook something, have them sample it, and do it twice more. Sort of a “rinse and repeat” with food. Only different.
So I was trying to think what I could do, without an oven (but I do have a burner) that’s not just seasonal. So I started thinking about soup. But bringing the stock and vegetables to a simmer took too long. Then I thought about sautéing the veg. And viola! It worked! My sautéed veg became stir fried veg. And then I threw everything else in. And, from start to finish (excluding the veg chopping, which was 4 minutes, 19 seconds), the whole soup took 22 minutes to cook.
Yes, you can try this at home. If you find that you’re pressed for time, do this faster soup. If not, make it the regular way. It’s just as good.
And if you want a recipe for the regular way? Let me know, and I’ll add it to my recipe page.
Happy souping! The soup season will be starting soon. Too soon.
