Light & Healthy: Chicken consomme with herbs

As I was making this wonderfully fragrant and satisfying consomme, I thought about how many ways I could spin it to take advantage of seasonal vegetables and leftover rotisserie chicken - just for example. In fact, I want to try this again with whole wheat dumplings, perhaps some fresh peas and pearl onions.

This isn’t like any boxed or canned chicken broth you’ve ever had. Instead, it’s a riff on a classic French technique for preparing consomme - a very rich, clear chicken stock. It’s simply perfect served in the French manner - hot with a few fresh parsley or thyme leaves - as a starter for a light meal which is a welcome change from all the rich holiday foods we’ve been stuffing ourselves with.

Ingredients:

1 large leek - cleaned thoroughly of sand and grit. Finely chopped

3 large shallots - peeled and minced

3 baby carrots - diced very small or grated

1 rib of celery - very finely diced

1/4 pound of ground chicken (thigh meat is preferrable)

6 cups of low sodium chicken broth

1/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup of finely minced fresh herbs - thyme, *parsley stems, sage and rosemary

1 large clove of garlic - finely minced

1/8 cup parsley leaves

3 tablespoons of grapeseed or canola oil

salt and pepper

In a heavy pot, over medium high heat, add the oil, then the carrots, celery, leek, shallots and garlic. Sauté for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the rest of the herbs and the chicken meat. Sauté for about 5 minutes more. Add the broth and wine. Turn the heat to high, and bring to a low boil, add a tightly fitting lid and reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Now take and strain the entire pot through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl. Discard the boiled veggies and meat. Return the clear consomme to the pot and continue to simmer over low for another 10 to 15 minutes.

You can serve this hot, with a few fresh herbs sprinkled on top, or add whole grain dumplings, whole grain pasta, peas, shredded rotisserie chicken - or even a couple of eggs, whisked and stirred in with fresh herbs like tarragon and chives.

The beauty of this consomme, is that you can make it up and have it one way tonight, and another way tomorrow - and of course, it freezes really well.

I served this with a salad of iceberg lettuce, arugula and cherry tomatoes dressed in a lightened up real mayonnaise dressing. You simply take the mayo - NOT the low cal icky stuff - and whisk it with the juice of one small lemon, a bit of oil, and either some yogurt or milk. Adjust to get the right creaminess so that it will coat the lettuce when it’s tossed. Add salt and freshly ground pepper … and a sprinkle of blue cheese crumbles would be excellent.

As you can see from the photo, I pan-fried slices of a whole wheat bread pudding with dried cranberries that some friends had brought over for dessert the previous evening. Then drizzled a bit maple syrup on those. I think I might make another bread pudding out of some leftover multi-grain artisan bread, and use some wild boar sausage that I’ve got in the freezer. This would really take the bread pudding out the realm of dessert and put it into the dinner column.

This was a perfectly light and healthy antidote to the endless rich holiday meals!

-maven