A swell soup featuring green chilis, potato and chicken.
This is another “made up” soup.

I bought a container of soup at the big deli and greengrocer on 4th street in Berkeley. This was my lunch on a day of book rep meetings, but it turned out to be darned good and I sought to repeat it at home.

What I could see or taste was:
Green Chilies, the dark green kind with thick flesh
Cubes of potato
Chunks of chicken
Celery
Swiss Chard or spinach.. just a little
Chicken broth

The soup was rich and very brothy and good. In a cup, before stirring, it had probably 2/3 solids with 1/3 broth on top.

LATER (February 6, 2001)
Poached a small chicken (I did it in the Think Like a Chef style… chicken in pot with water to well cover… bring just to the boil… dump the water… add fresh water… back to a simmer and add the usual onions, carrots, celery.) After about 45 minutes, take out the chicken, pick the meat off the bones and chuck the bones back in the pot… simmer for another 45 minutes to an hour. This produced a wonderful clear broth, not cloudy as is often the case. The theory is that with the first boil you get rid of the blood and other bad stuff, but don’t throw away flavor.
During the 2nd simmer, Carol was cutting up a duck, so I threw in the duck neck and wingtips, for good measure. For a thorough treatise on broth making, see “Chicken Soup.”
Roasted 2 each, Poblano and Anaheim Chilies and cut bite size. (about a cup)
Diced 1C each potatoes, celery, Swiss chard and chicken meat.
Sauteed chopped shallots & garlic in the pot; added potatoes and celery for a few minutes, added broth and simmered for 20 minutes or so to cook the veggies, added chicken meat, chilis and Swiss chard, stirred them in and turned off the heat. Salt & Pepper and fresh thyme along the way.

That’s damn good.

Summerized:
Marc’s Greengrocer Soup
Homemade chicken broth
Small Chicken, carrot, onion, celery
The Soup
Chopped shallots and garlic
2 Poblano chilies, roasted and chopped bite size
2 Anaheim chilies, roasted and chopped bite size
1C diced potatoes
1C diced celery
1C diced swiss chard
1C diced chicken meat
1. Make the broth (see “Chicken Soup.”) Meanwhile, roast the chilies and dice the vegetables.
2. Saute chopped shallots and garlic in olive oil in a pot. Add potatoes and celery and stir for a minute or so. Add broth to cover well, salt, pepper and thyme, bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes or so to cook the vegetables. Add chicken, chilies and chard, stir in, turn off the heat.

Eat. There will be leftovers, you can add noodles to the LO for another treat.