Recipe: Leftover Chicken and Steamed Vegetables Soup

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

It has been quite sometime since my last recipe post here. Admittedly, I did lose my cooking mojo (and honestly I still have not gained it back till now). I would attempt to cook but they never turned out as good as I'd expected them to be so every time my family would request for home-cooked meals from me, I would often just choose safer menus that wouldn't take longer than 30 minutes to cook. There's one meat recipe that I made several times though which my family really loved but that was a recipe I borrowed from Maqui. 

The past few days however saw us with plenty of leftovers from New Year's and as I have a penchant for 'upcycling' things I was looking into finding a recipe that I could use most of the remaining leftovers in our fridge. Gladly, while I was thumbing into an old issue of Good Housekeeping magazine I found a soup recipe. It will provide me a use for the steamed veggies and the lechon manok leftovers that we have. Even better, I had all the ingredients for it and I was really aiming to use them soon else I wouldn't really wish for them to stay in our fridge for another week.

So here goes my soup recipe that ended up tasting more like Chicken-ala-King. Fortunately, it still won the hearts of my 'critics'. 

What I used:

-A handful of Leftover Lechon Manok, diced (I used the breast part here since that's usually what's leftover)

-2 cups of steamed veggies (large chunks of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and baguio beans), diced

-1/2 cup of evaporated filled milk
-1/2 cup of whole corn kernels

-A few teaspoons of flour

-1 tsp of cornstarch

-2 cups chicken broth/vegetable broth

-1 medium onion, chopped 

-1 knob butter

-2 tsps olive oil

-salt and pepper to taste

-(optional) chopped parsley for garnish

How I did it:

1. Over low fire, saute the onion over melted butter and olive oil till translucent/fragrant.

2. Add in the leftover chicken and saute for 3 more minutes.

3. Dump in the steamed veggies and corn kernels

4. Sprinkle the flour and stir in the broth. 

5. Pour in the milk and simmer. If the soup isn't thick enough to your liking, dilute your cornstarch in a few teaspoons of water, pour over the simmering soup and mix evenly till you achieve your desired consistency.
6. Remove from fire and garnish with chopped parsley or spring onions, whichever you have on hand.
7. Serve with a hot steaming bowl of rice. Enjoy!

This can feed 4-6 hungry stomachs.