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Danish Giblet Soup
The giblets of any fowl may be used. Scald and skin the feet and gizzard, wash liver, heart and neck, cut in small pieces and add tips of wings. Put all in a kettle, cover with 2 quarts water, add salt to taste, cook gently till tender and strain into a bowl. Remove fat when cold, reheat stock to boiling point and thicken with 1 tablespoon flour mixed with 2 tablespoons vinegar. Put in 3 small peeled and quartered apples, a little sugar and a half dozen prunes, previously soaked in water. Add cut pieces of giblets, simmer 20 minutes and serve.
A sweet-sour fruit soup built on poultry giblet stock, of the kind Danish cooks made from the trimmings of a goose or a large chicken. The balance of vinegar, sugar and fruit is the whole point, so taste as you finish rather than trusting the quantities.
- What the giblets areHeart, liver, gizzard, neck and wing tips, plus the feet if you can get them. Supermarket birds usually come with a small giblet packet; a butcher or an Asian grocer will sell feet and necks separately, and 1 to 1.5 lb of mixed parts suits the 2 quarts of water here.
- Scalding the feet and gizzardDip the feet in boiling water for about 30 seconds and the outer yellow skin and the nail sheaths peel away. The gizzard needs splitting and the tough inner lining stripped out and discarded before it goes in the pot.
- Cook the liver separatelyLiver turns grainy and clouds the stock over a long simmer. Poach it for the last 10 minutes only, then dice it and return it with the rest of the meat at the end.
- Timing the stock"Cook gently till tender" means 1.5 to 2 hours at a bare simmer for necks, feet and gizzards. Boiling hard emulsifies the fat and muddies the broth.
- Chilling to degreaseThe recipe cools the stock to lift the fat. Get it into the refrigerator promptly rather than leaving the kettle out overnight, and the fat cap comes off in one sheet the next morning.
- The flour and vinegarOne tablespoon of flour slaked in two tablespoons of vinegar makes a thin slurry, but it will still lump if dropped straight into boiling stock. Loosen it with a ladle of hot broth first, then whisk it back in. The result is barely thickened, not gravy.
- Sweet and sourUse a mild vinegar, cider or white wine. Start with a teaspoon or two of sugar with the fruit and adjust at the end; the prunes and apples bring their own sweetness and the soup should stay tart.
- The fruitFirm cooking apples hold their quarters through the final 20 minutes; softer varieties collapse into the broth. Soak the prunes an hour in warm water and add some of the soaking liquid if you want more colour.
- YieldTwo quarts of water reduces to roughly six modest bowls. Serve as a first course, with dark rye bread.