Adreena’s Creamed Chicken & Mushroom Broth

INGREDIENTS

• 1 raw chicken carcass, chopped
• 2 chicken legs (or just the thighs or drumsticks)
• 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 leek, roughly chopped and washed
• 10 black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• A few sprigs of thyme
• A few sprigs of tarragon, stalks separated, leaves roughly shredded
• 1 litre of good chicken stock
• 60 g butter, plus an extra couple of knobs
• 50 g plain flour
• Salt and freshly ground white pepper
• 100–120g mushrooms, cleaned and sliced if large or halved or quartered
• 60 ml double cream

DIRECTIONS
Put the chicken carcass and legs into a pan with the onion, leek, peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme, tarragon stalks and stock. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer gently for 35–40 minutes. Remove the chicken legs and set aside to cool. Strain the stock through a sieve.

Melt the 60g butter in a clean saucepan and stir in the flour. Cook, stirring, over a medium heat for a minute, then gradually add the strained stock, a ladleful at a time, stirring well to avoid lumps forming. Bring to the boil, season and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat. Blitz the soup using a free-standing or hand-held stick blender to give it a nice silky ?nish. Return to the cleaned pan.

Melt a couple of knobs of butter in a frying pan and gently cook the mushrooms for two to three minutes without colouring them. Remove the meat from the chicken legs and shred into even-sized pieces with your fingers. Add to the soup with the mushrooms, cream and tarragon leaves. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Simmer gently for a minute or so before serving