Chicken Broth with Egg and Spinach

Ann has been asking me to make a chicken broth-based soup with egg in it for a few weeks now, but it has always been pushed aside for something else. I poached a chicken early this week with the express purpose of making broth for this soup and last night was the night for the soup. To the boiling chicken stock, I added one breast that I diced, two big handfuls of spinach leaves, and five beaten eggs. It was just what the doctor ordered yesterday, after a day of working out in the cold.

Chicken Broth with Egg and Spinach

Almost every culture has its version of chicken broth and egg soup, probably because it is so simple to make, so tasty, so easy to digest, and so comforting, something that mom might make for you when you are not feeling up to par. There are not too many dishes like that in the culinary world! Just off hand, I can think of Cantonese egg drop soup, Greek avgolemono, Italian stracciatella, and Bavarian/Tirolean Eierflockensuppe. Ann, being Italian on all sides of her family, was lucky enough to be fed stracciatella with acini di pepe and parmigiano when she wasn't well!

This soup was the third dish that I made from that very versatile poached chicken. A chicken can so easily feed a lot of people for very little cost, if you know how to stretch them. Consider that with this chicken I made chicken pot pies, chicken tacos, and this soup. This chicken is not done yet: I will roast the remaining bones and skin along with some turkey necks that I have in the freezer to make yet another big pot of turkey-vegetable soup this weekend. I'll have to do a post soon on chicken tacos and how to stretch six ounces of chicken with onions and black beans to feed two people very heartily.