Chicken Tortilla Soup

There is a short story behind the bowl of chicken tortilla soup pictured above.  I goes like this:

For about a month my family and I have been living without an oven, so while in a supermarket the other day, the smell of the freshly rotisserized (yup! new word!) chickens wafting through the air at 7pm hitting my empty stomach caused a huger pang I could not ignore!  I immediately decided what we were going to have for supper that night, and after checking the labels for gluten, MSG, nitrates, etc., and seeing it was free and clear of these nuisances, purchased two three pounders for $8!  Arriving home, I just couldn't cook the side dishes of rice and beans fast enough as the aroma of these juicy birds began to overtake our home!  As we finally sunk our teeth into the soft juicy flesh, we all agreed this was almost the best meal we've had in the last month! (tied with the frying pan pizza of course!)  At last, a meal of comfort food that tasted home-roasted, in an oven-less home!  What's even better is that we got about three meals out of just the breast meat, wings and legs alone.

Now I don't know about you, but when I have chicken carcasses left after eating the breast meat, wings and legs, I see visions of a pot full of flavorful stock and endless soup possibilities!  That's where this chicken tortilla soup comes in....

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Chicken Stock:
Place the bones, and whatever meat is left on them, of two small chickens into a 6qt stockpot.  Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.  If you have onions, carrots, and celery, and bay leaves, you could add these, roughly chopped in with the chicken bones for more flavor.  Boil for about 45 minutes or so until all the meat is falling off the bones.  Strain the stock into a large bowl through a colander, and set aside to use for the Tortilla Soup, or you can freeze for use in other soups, gravies or liquid for cooking rice.  This will give a very rustic style stock, not very clear, but full of fantastic flavor!  If there is a substantial amount of fat in the stock, simply refrigerate for several hours or overnight.  The fat will rise to the top and solidify making it very easy to remove, then you can proceed with your stock storage/usage.  DO NOT THROW AWAY THE BONES YET!  Pick every last delicious morsel of meat off those bones before discarding, this will be the meat that you use for the soup below...  or be creative!  Make your own variation of chicken soup with the meat and stock!

For the Chicken Tortilla Soup you will need:
About 1 gallon of chicken stock (above) or good quality broth
1 small sweet onion, finely diced
1 small red bell pepper, finely diced
(Feel free to add any other type of pepper that you like such as jalapeno, chipotle, pablano etc.  I kept the soup on the mild side, since my daughter does like like spicy things.)
1 large, or 2 small, ribs of celery, including the leaves
1/2 c. masa harina*
1 (28 oz.) can tomato sauce
1 (14.5 oz) can fire roasted diced tomatoes
1-2 Tbs taco seasoning  (normally I make my own seasoning from individual spices, but this was all I had at the time, It worked great! of course we get the kind that has no gluten, msg, etc.)
All the chicken left over from picking off the bones above (about 3-4 cups)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Cooked left over rice, warmed
Cooked left over black beans, warmed
Cholula Hot Sauce (or your favorite...)

In the now empty 6 qt stock pot that you just cooked your stock in, heat 2 Tbs of butter or olive oil in the bottom, then saute the onion, pepper, celery (this combination is also referred to as "sofrito") until very soft and starting to brown.  (To save time you can do this step while you are picking the meat off the bones...)  Add the masa harina in at this point, and stir to combine with the butter and sofrito, to make a gluten-free roux which will work wonderfully as a thickening agent.  This will give a nice body and mouth feel to the soup, not to mention a true "tortilla" flavor*.  No need to cook this "roux" mixture any longer, simply add the stock back into the pot at this point and bring to a simmer.  Let the sofrito cook down and get very soft as the stock simmers and thickens  (I usually use an immersion blender to blend all of this up smooth for best flavor, but having no blender at all, simmering in this manner will bring those flavors out almost as good...  although it won't be quite as smooth, that is ok.).  Add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, taco seasoning, salt and pepper.  Simmer on very low heat until almost ready to serve.  About 15 minutes before serving add the chicken pieces and continue simmering until hot.  At service time, place about 1/4 c. rice and 1/8-1/4 c. black beans in the bottom of soup bowl and ladle soup over top.  Serve with Cholula hot sauce (or your personal favorite...) and tortilla chips.  Sour cream, shredded Colby Jack or Pepper Jack cheeses are delicious with this as well, if you are able to have dairy. 

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Not only was this soup absolutely delicious, it was also a great way to get more meals out of my $8.  Counting the meals that we got out of the soup, I ended up getting a total of 24 individual meals (servings) out of both chickens together.  When I purchased the chickens the labels said "Serves Four" on each of them.  I technically served 12 out of each of them, and all allergen-free at that!  Just look what you can do with a little time, love and recipes from Living Free!   :o)

* Typically a tortilla soup is thickened with actual corn tortillas that are added into the soup, cooked down and then blended in with an immersion blender.  Since I had no immersion blender, needed to thicken this without gluten, and also wanted to keep a true tortilla flavor in this soup, what better way than to use masa harina, a corn flour, mixed into the melted butter in the same manner as making a traditional glutennous roux.  I was truly impressed with the result of this experiment!