Romaine and I moved out of our Brooklyn apartment at the end of August and moved into our Paris apartment two weeks later — in September. While eating out in Paris is fabulous, it is also decadent…too decadent. By the end of our two nomadic weeks, we were both fighting colds and craving home cooked food. This glamour chicken soup is the first meal I made for us in our new Paris apartment because it’s easy, satisfying, and incredibly comforting. It’s a version of the soup my mom used to make for our family that I’ve made countless times over the years. Romaine and I visited a Korean grocery store and bought some ponytail cabbage kimchi, sesame oil, and rice before we picked up the keys for our new place. I hope this chicken soup brings you as much comfort as it did for me in my first few weeks in Paris.

Recipe Type: Comfort Food

Time: 1-2 hours

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients

1 whole (glamour) chicken

1 onion

3 scallions whites and greens cut into ¼ inch slices

4 inch piece of ginger peeled and cut into 2 pieces

6-10 cloves of peeled garlic (depending on how many cloves you want to peel)

2 teaspoons of sesame oil

Salt and Pepper

Instructions

Prepare your ingredients: peel the garlic cloves, peel the onion and cut in half making sure to keep the root tact to keep the onion half together, peel and cut ginger into two pieces.
Place the pot near the sink and remove any stray feathers and giblets that may be left on the glamour chicken. Rinse the bird carefully in the sink and drain well with paper towels and then place her into the pot. Make sure to thoroughly sanitize and clean any areas the chicken may have touched!
Add garlic, onion, ginger and add enough water to submerge the glamour chicken 2-3 inches (about 6-10 cups of water depending on the size of your chicken/pot).
Place the pot on the stove over high heat until the whole pot comes to a boil. Once boiling, lower heat to medium low so that the liquid has a gentle rolling boil. Keep the lid slightly ajar on the pot.
Boil the chicken for about an hour and a half for a smaller chicken (2-3 lbs) and around two hours for a larger bird (4-6 lbs). Check the bird every 20 minutes or so and skim the fat off the top of the broth as it cooks and add more water if too much evaporates. You want to cook the chicken enough to get a beauty-beige broth without overcooking the breast meat.
Once the beauty-broth and bird are cooked, carefully pull the chicken out of the broth and place on a plate to chill out for 5-10 minutes before chopping up and serving. Strain the broth with a colander to remove the aromatic vegetables.
Prepare the dipping sauce by adding 1 teaspoon of salt, a couple grinds of black pepper and drizzling 1-2 teaspoons of sesame oil

How to Serve

Serve each person with a piece of chicken, steamed Steamed Korean Rice and My Mother’s Kimchi (or store bought ponytail radish kimchi in a pinch like me). Both recipes can be found in Le Kimchi Party!

Guests should add sliced scallions to the soup and add salt/pepper to taste.

Dip pieces of chicken in the sesame/salt sauce and enjoy!

Soup will keep in the fridge for 3 days. Make sure to bring to a full bowl before eating leftovers. If you have extra broth, simply freeze and use as stock in the future.

Making kimchi with my mother is one of my fondest food memories. I remember squatting on our kitchen floor and assisting my mom as she prepared this complex dish. She would meticulously chop and assemble all of the ingredients and narrate what she was doing. After what seemed like hours of work, my mom would pop a tiny cabbage leaf dredged in the kimchi paste into my mouth and ask me what I thought about the flavors. I loved the fresh and briny cabbage, the complex kimchi paste, and being hand-fed by my mother. Most of all, I loved that mother bestowed a significant responsibility on me—taste testing. I felt so valued, and it was not lost on me that my opinion would impact the outcome of the flavors of the kimchi we made.