Organic chicken soup with tarragon garlic bread

This organic chicken soup with tarragon garlic bread recipe from food writer and recipe developer Helen Graves uses organic chicken drumsticks as the key flavour in her warming chicken soup. Cosy up with a big bowl of the richly-flavoured broth and dunk in her easy garlic bread, flavoured with fragrant tarragon.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Chicken soup:

1kg organic chicken drumsticks

2 sticks of celery, finely chopped

3 carrots, finely chopped

2 onions, roughly chopped

800ml chicken stock

2 bay leaves

5 peppercorns

small bunch flat leaf parsley

Tarragon garlic bread:

1 baguette

1 bunch tarragon, leaves roughly chopped

100g butter, at room temperature

3 garlic cloves, crushed

Method

To start the soup, add the chicken to a large pan along with the vegetables, stock, bay leaves and peppercorns. Separate the parsley stalks and leaves, reserving the leaves for garnish and adding the stalks to the pan. Pour cold water into the pan to cover everything then bring to the boil over a medium heat on the hob. Once simmering, use a spoon to skim off any scum that appears on the surface of the soup (this will help improve the final flavour ofthe soup). After an hour, strain the soup and set aside the chicken pieces, discarding the other flavourings. Place the soup back on a gentle heat. When cool enough to handle, remove the skin from the chicken and shred the meat into the soup. Stir together and season with salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 160ºC/gas mark 3. To make the tarragon garlic bread, use a serrated knife to slice into the baguette, cutting deep grooves but not cutting all the way through. Mix together the tarragon and garlic with the butter to create a flavoured paste. Spread this into each slice and wrap the whole baguette in foil. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes then serve with the soup, garnished with the reserved parsley leaves.

Recipe courtesy of greatbritishchefs.com