Foolish Fevers Need Bullion

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chicken broth

When You Have The Flu

The flu is the horror that everyone is trying to avoid.  Even though Alison and I already caught a bout of this flu, we hadn’t expected to be sick again so soon.  Scrubbing our hands every time we walk through the front door, we try not to touch our faces.  The usual tactics of avoiding the flu so, it’s hard to even say where we got these germs but once again we were stuck in bed with fevers.  The usual upside of being sick is that there is someone not sick who can give you good food. 

Only this time we found ourselves standing in the kitchen wondering how we were going to make chicken soup from scratch.  Traditional chicken soup is not in our repertoire.  We just tend to make anything but soup when we cook with chicken.  So, we had some vague idea about soup.  On the counter are aromatics and chicken thighs.  We didn’t have any other parts of chicken, but that should be enough. 

Grocery Shop Before You Get Sick

With desperation, we asked a friend to give us some suggestions only to realize we were out of crucial ingredients like soy sauce.  This is almost unheard of as we purchase our soy sauce by the quart.  Apparently we were not going to make hot and sour soup.  So, we stood around thinking about what goes in soup only to be tired and easily distracted.  After we cobbled together what went into most of a recipe we found in an Alton Brown cookbook.  Put everything into a pot and cover it with a steamer basket and simmer for up to 8 hours.  Simple enough, right?

Every ten minutes, the top needs a skim.  That first hour of skimming felt like an eternity.  The pain of getting out of bed when you ache and are cold is enough to pass back and forth the responsibility.  Staring at your sister because you are pathetic does not work when she is equally weak and unmotivated.  So you get up and take your turn because you know that you have to or the system breaks and then all the turns would be yours. 

Being The Less Sick Caretaker

There is nothing worse than being the sibling that broke the system and bearing the entire burden on your own.  Sibling justice certainly hasn’t changed no matter how many years pass.  There are no sick passes either when you are both trying to distract yourself by watching Imposters.  A drama that is a perfect watch if you have the flu, as you know that the goal is to find the cons and if you miss an episode by napping you won’t be horribly lost. 

So after a final simmer, we take out all the pieces to toss.  Pull out the chicken thighs to shred and to our surprise find no bones inside.  Yes, that is right I chose the only boneless chicken thighs in the freezer.  So our soup stock is really hours of stirring warm broth. Broth is made without bones while stock always uses bones.  The secret is using bones and meat for flavorful stock.  So if anyone offers you vegetable stock, then you know that they are a liar.  Thankfully even people with fevers know how to use bullion.  We highly recommend making your stocks when you are not sick to avoid making mistakes.  Fevers do not mean you have to miss out on flavor, so use your stored stock or bullion to start your soups. 

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