Chicken and Watercress Soup

Here is a recipe that is very popular with the Husband. It's also cheap and easy to make and adaptable as you can add other ingredients to the finished soup. I've thrown in a handful of frozen sweetcorn into the soup in the past and to the batch I made this week I added a leftover sweet potato, peeled and diced, and just simmered it in the soup until it was cooked - it made a really good addition to the chicken and the watercress.

Chicken and Watercress Soup

Stock
1 kg chicken wings
1 medium white onion, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 bay leaf

Soup
1 large potato, peeled and diced
the chickenmeat from the stock (excluding the bones and skin)
salt and pepper to taste
bunch or bag of watercress

To make the stock put the chicken wings in a pot, cover with cold water and bring to the boil, then drain and rinse with fresh water to get rid of the excess fat. Then place the wings in a clean pot, cover with cold water again and add the other stock ingredients and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for an hour. Be sure to remove any fat that comes to the surface. Add a little extra water if the level falls below the bones.

Pass the stock though a sieve into another clean pot. Bring to the boil and add the diced potato. Simmer until the potato breaks down and thickens the soup (I cheat and use a potato masher when it's cooked).

While you are doing this pick the meat off the chicken wings, discarding the bones and skin. Add the chicken meat to the soup base and season with salt and pepper.

To serve chop up a few stalks of watercress and put them in the soup bowls and add the soup. Within seconds they are part of the soup. Delicious.