By Joell Folger
My paternal grandmother was something of a wizard in the kitchen. To be fair, I was far too young to remember much of my maternal grandmother as she passed when I was around 4 years old. However, had she lived longer, I no doubt would have just as fond memories with her in the kitchen.
Mama, which is what we called her, always had something going on in the kitchen. Homemade noodles, candies, soups, roasts all with roots in traditional Hungarian cuisine. She used up everything in her pantry, even saving the juice from the little can of blueberries in a box muffin kit to make the most beautiful lavender shade of icing for cookies.
John and I enjoy cooking with the same philosophies and use up what we have. I’m very fortunate that John is also a wizard in the kitchen being able to pull together a delicious meal from what we have left around. With a dash of this and a sprinkle of that, Voilà - even mundane shredded potatoes are elevated to crispy flavorful bites.
In this spirit and facing yet another round of winter weather, with a half of a rotisserie chicken in the fridge, we set to work on white bean and chicken chili. True confession, I had to buy the as I had yet to replace the missing cans in my pantry. We did not use a written down recipe, part of it was verbally passed along to me, I had made it before and just went with it. Generally, we had almost 2 cups of chicken meat, 4 cups of stock, used an onion and half, two carrots, two celery stalks, two cans of cannellini beans, small can of green chilis, 4 - 6 green onions as some were garnish, fresh jalapeno pepper and 3 cloves of garlic. The spices were some salt & pepper, celery salt, cayenne pepper, cumin, smoky paprika and coriander.
Any good chili/soup starts with a good stock. John set to work removing the chicken from the bones, tossing the bones and skin into the stock pot with a yellow onion, a few carrots and celery stalks, some water and chicken base. After bringing the stock to a boil, John let it simmer and reduce for a few hours on the stove top. It was then strained leaving behind an amber chicken stock.
Tagged, it was my turn to transform this fresh chicken stock into white bean chili. Turning to my beloved blue pot, the chopped onions, garlic and peppers are tossed into hot oil with some olive oil to sautee for a few minutes. Next I added the beans, juice and all from the can, what an extra boost of flavor this adds. Before I dumped in the second can, I gave the ones in the pot a quick mash or two, just breaking some down to add some bulk to the body of the chili. Then the second can was added along with the spices, then a nice big stir while slowly pouring in the chicken stock. I let this come to a boil and kept it there as there was a lot of stock that needed to be reduced. Maybe 20 minutes later, quick mid cooking kitchen clean up time later, it was time to really thicken up the stock with a cornstarch slurry. I used about 2 - 3 tsp of cornstarch with about a tablespoon of water. (A repurposed single serve jelly jar was the slurry vessel.) This simmered for another 5 - 10 minutes and then the chicken went in to cook for a final 5 - 10 minutes.
In the meantime, let's get the toppings together. We had chopped green onions, lime coated avocado chunks, shredded sharp white cheddar cheese and sour cream. Can’t forget the fresh warm corn bread, too. What a perfectly spicy and hearty meal on a stormy winter night.
This was not the first time that we have turned a rotisserie chicken into some sort of soup/chili. Nor will it be the last, especially since this is a meal that we can work on together without getting in each other's way.
