Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle Like Soup

I am on a diet. I HAVE to lose 15 kgs (33 Pounds). I'm feeling miserable with all this extra baggage I'm carrying around and my beautiful clothes are not fitting (the real reason actually) and I really, really want to start running again.

My diet plan is soup, soup and more soup. And salads. And fruits and veggies.

So, in the next week, I shall be posting one soup recipe every single day, and hopefully an accompanying pic.

I make my own stock and I truly believe that the basis for good soup is a good, fresh, without preservatives stock. I mostly rely on chicken stock. I have a two recipes for stock, one for asian style soups and one for non-asian soups.

This is my recipe for Chicken Stock. It is basically a mix of different recipes gleaned from Kylie Kwong, Bourdain, Jamie Oliver, TAG and I guess about 100 other food blogs and tweaked to substitute locally available ingredients.

Chicken Stock for Dummies

Ingredients:
Chicken Bones of 3 1.2 kg chickens(I normally get my chicken deboned and use the left over bones for the stock)
2-3 litres or more of water to completely cover the chicken
2 carrots sliced
2 onions/ shallots
Celery stalks (OPTIONAL - though I really think this is a wonderful flavour and you get pretty good celery at Park circus market)
1 Bayleaf (tejpatta)
Salt to taste

For Asian Stock:
Ginger - 1 inch sliced thick
Coriander stalks
Peppercorns

Method:
In a large degchi/ stockpot/ pan, add chicken bones and cover with water, put on heat and let it bubble away. Keep skimming off the fat and impurities. After 20 minutes add carrots, onion, celery. If you are doing an Asian stock, add ginger, peppercorns and coriander stalks after 30 minutes. Add salt to taste. Simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Cool stock completely, strain and keep in fridge. Normally after a day the fat comes up on the surface. I strain it again to take out all the fat. This stays for 7 days in the fridge, but I normally use it up in 5 days. This should yield about 1 to 2 litres of stock. I truly believe that after getting used to home made stock, it is impossible to use those awful stock cubes.