This is a simple soup to make on the day you’re making chicken stock. This will yield eight servings, but the recipe can easily be cut in half to make four servings and yield more stock for the freezer. Make the Chicken Stock (see page 74), adding two bone-in chicken legs or chicken breasts to the stock along with the vegetables. Remove the chicken breasts or legs from the stock after 1 hour of cooking and let them stand at room temperature until cool enough to handle. Discard the skin and pick the meat off the bone, shredding it coarsely and discarding little bones and cartilage as you do.

　　

Ingredients

　　

Step 1

Bring 8 cups of the stock to a boil in a large saucepan. (Cool the remaining stock and refrigerate or freeze it for future use.) Add 2 cups long-grain rice and cook until al dente—tender but firm—about 10 minutes. (If you like very tender rice, cook a few minutes more.) Stir the shredded chicken meat and 1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley into the soup, check the seasonings, and serve the soup in warm bowls, passing grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese separately at the table.

　　

Step 2

You can make this soup even easier to serve by cooking the rice separately and adding it to the stock at the last minute. That will give you a clearer soup, as the starch from the rice won’t cloud the stock, but the flavor is better if the rice is cooked right in the broth. And that is how we made the soup traditionally.

　　Cooks' Note

　　The extra chicken pieces added to the stock enrich the stock and furnish the meat for the finished soup. If you’d rather, use the shredded chicken meat to make this simple salad to accompany the soup or serve on its own: Pour enough of the hot stock over 1/2 cup raisins to cover them and steep until the raisins are softened. Drain them and toss with the shredded chicken meat and sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, chopped fresh Italian parsley, and extra-virgin olive oil to taste.

　　From Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich Copyright © 2001 by A La Carte Communications and Tutti a Tavola, LLC. Published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.Buy the full book from Amazon.