The Second Avenue Deli Cookbook (12 page)

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Authors: Sharon Lebewohl

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Chicken Soup with Chickpeas, Potatoes, and Spinach
SERVES
8
This is a variation on the Deli's famous chicken soup, directly above. The first nine ingredients (everything but the dill) are the same, so we haven't listed them here again. Prepare as the above recipe through steps 1 and 2.
ADDITIONAL INGREDIENTS
2 teaspoons cumin
1 pound red potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks, ¾-inch thick
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup cooked chickpeas (preferably made fresh)
4 cups fresh spinach, very thoroughly washed
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
FOR THE GARLIC TOAST
French or Italian loaf, cut into ¾-inch slices
Fresh garlic cloves, crushed
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Margarine
FOR THE ROUX
3 tablespoons corn oil
¼ cup flour
1 and 2. See chicken soup recipe above, steps 1 and 2.
3. Add onion, carrot, parsnip, salt, pepper, and cumin. Let soup simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes. While the soup is simmering, boil potatoes in a separate pot until just cooked but firm. Drain potatoes, remove them to a bowl, and set aside. Also prepare the garlic toast for baking. Place bread slices on a double sheet of aluminum foil, and spread about ¾ teaspoon crushed garlic on each slice. Drizzle each slice well with olive oil, sprinkle lightly with salt, and top with thin slivers of margarine. Set aside.
4. When the chicken cools, remove skin and bones and cut into bite-sized pieces; set aside.
5. In a shallow baking dish, toss the potato chunks in olive oil, and broil for about 10 minutes, turning once so that they brown evenly. Keep an eye on them, so they don't burn. Remove potatoes to a covered dish, and set aside on an unlit burner. Adjust oven temperature to 375 degrees (the heat from the oven will keep the potatoes warm).
6. Strain the soup, and discard everything solid except the carrot. Dice carrot into ¾-inch pieces, and set aside.
7. Place aluminum foil with bread in oven, and bake for 15 minutes or until bread is nicely browned. Keep an eye on it, so it doesn't burn.
8. While the bread is browning, keeping your soup at a low simmer, spoon off 3 cups clear soup. Pour corn oil into a medium saucepan, and add flour, stirring well until it is completely dissolved. Put the roux pot on medium to high heat, and add the 3 cups of soup, a little bit at a time, stirring constantly to create a thick, totally smooth, pastelike roux. It will get a little less pastelike as you add more soup. Transfer the roux to the soup pot, and stir in well.
9. When soup is adequately thickened, add potatoes, chicken, carrot, chickpeas, spinach, and lemon juice. Cook for 1 minute more. Serve with garlic toast.
Note:
Consider the garlic toast recipe below to complement other soups
and entrées. If you serve it with a dairy, pasta, fish, or other nonmeat meal, use butter instead of margarine; it tastes better.

F
ORMER MAYOR
D
AVID
D
INKINS
once said, “On a quiet dark street, on a subway late at night, or in a dangerous situation of any kind, to see a Guardian Angel is to feel that you are safe.”
Curtis Sliwa founded New York's red-bereted volunteer crime-prevention patrols, the Guardian Angels, in 1979. Today his Angels combat crime, violence, and drugs in cities worldwide and provide inspirational speakers to educate youngsters about the organization's no-gang, no-gun, no-drug philosophy. Sliwa also hosts an evening radio show on WABC.
In the 1980s, when I moved to the East Village, I had a heavy public-speaking schedule promoting the Guardian Angels. All that public speaking frequently made me lose my voice, a problem I've been prone to all my life and for which I had only ever found one effective remedy—my aunt Mary's chicken soup. But Aunt Mary lives in Howard Beach, and I didn't usually have time to go out there. So I began buying chicken soup—to the amazement of countermen, three or four quarts at a time—from the Second Avenue Deli. One day, Abe Lebewohl saw me buying the soup and said, “You take care of the city, let me take care of you.” He disappeared into the kitchen and was gone for such a long time I began to get nervous, so I ordered and ate a pastrami sandwich. He finally came back with what he called his “most potent” chicken soup—with carrots, celery, kasha, and even a little chicken fat! It worked like medicine. I had had a pounding headache and congestion when I came in. Within a half hour, my head had cleared, and I felt great. After that, he always fixed his special soup for me, and it always worked—a few ladles and Bingo!
In 1992, I was kidnapped in a stolen taxi, shot several times, and left for dead on a Lower Manhattan street. When I returned home from the hospital, my apartment was protected by a police guard unit as well as a crew of Guardian Angels. Every day for three months, while I recuperated, Abe (my own guardian angel) would send over daily care packages of food for the police and the Angels—and totally clear chicken soup (he strained it through a cloth) for me. It was practically the only thing I could digest, and I looked forward to it greatly each day.
In 1994, Abe told me he was planning a pickle-eating contest at the Deli and looking for someone who symbolized New York to compete. At the time, still recovering from gunshot wounds, I wasn't taking chances with my diet. I was eating only very bland food, and I was really sick of it. I decided to throw caution to the winds and enter his contest. I downed four and three-quarters pounds of garlic pickles in
fifteen minutes, winning $500 for the Angels and a trophy. More important, winning the contest helped me focus mind over matter and stop worrying so much about my stomach, which has functioned perfectly ever since. I've gone on to compete in pizza-, hot dog–, and sushi-eating contests, and my stomach processes it all like it was manufactured by Roto-Rooter.
For
The Second Avenue Deli Cookbook,
I'd like to pass along the recipe for my Aunt Mary's very delicious and very elaborate chicken soup.
Aunt Mary's Chicken Soup
SERVES
8
This recipe makes a lot of soup. If you're not planning to serve it all at once, add snow peas, escarole, and pastina only to the part you're serving. Strained broth can be frozen to use as a base for future soups.
1 4- to 5-pound chicken, quartered
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 large whole onion, peeled
3 cloves garlic, peeled, whole but crushed
2 medium carrots, chopped into ½-inch pieces
1 stalk celery, cut into ¾-inch pieces
½ small leek, well scrubbed and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 bay leaf
3 small plum tomatoes, cut into ¾-inch pieces (remove seeds)
1 whole small potato, peeled
½ bunch Italian parsley, tied
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon salt
6 escarole leaves, coarsely chopped
½ cup snow peas
1 cup cooked Ronzoni egg pastina #155 (a very tiny star-shaped pasta)
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Place chicken and kosher salt in a large pot or bowl with very cold water to cover, and leave it to soak for 1 hour. Wash thoroughly, and set aside.
2. Pour 12 cups of cold water into a large stockpot, add onion and garlic cloves, and bring to a boil. Add carrots, celery, leek, and bay leaf; reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes.
3. Add chicken, tomatoes, potato, parsley, black peppercorns, and salt to the stockpot. Continue to simmer for 2 hours and 20 minutes.
4. Place a strainer over a large bowl, and pour the soup into it. From the strainer, first remove all chicken pieces to a separate bowl, discarding fat, skin, and bones in the process. Also discard the onion, bay leaf, parsley, and as many peppercorns as you can find.
5. Pour liquid soup back into the stockpot, immediately replacing strainer atop the bowl. Separate out, as far as possible, the garlic cloves, carrots, and potato, and mash them in a different bowl. Skin and debone the chicken, cutting it into bite-sized pieces. Return all of these ingredients, along with the rest of the vegetables in the strainer, to the soup. Add escarole and snow peas, and simmer 5 minutes more. Add pastina, season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

R
OZANNE
G
OLD
is a prominent mover and shaker in the food world. She ran the kitchen at Gracie Mansion during the Koch administration, was instrumental in re-creating the Rainbow Room and Windows on the World, has been president of Les Dames d'Escoffier, and twice won the coveted James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook—in 1994 for
Little Meals: A Great New Way to Eat & Cook
and in 1997 for
Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only 3 Ingredients.
She is also a frequent guest on national TV shows such as
Good Morning America, Live with Regis & Kathie Lee,
and
Today.
Only a big-hearted soul, with a sense of humor, would create such an incongruity at his place of business—just to please a friend. Abe, dear Abe, who never ate a little meal in his life, bought fifty, count 'em, fifty, copies of my first cookbook,
Little Meals,
to display at the Second Avenue Deli of all places. Why? Each one of you who knew Abe knows the answer. It was love all around. Abe loved me because I was like him—a cook, a matchmaker, a chicken soup maven.
When I was Ed Koch's chef at Gracie Mansion, Abe was my hero. He made me look real good. I always suspected His Honor knew whose chopped liver he was eating. And at the Rainbow Room, when we did Seders for special guests, I suspect they also knew whose chopped liver they were eating.
I once went to a book party for Seymour Chwast's
Trylon and Perisphere: The 1939 New York World's Fair,
for which Abe had re-created the Trylon and Perisphere (official symbols of that fair) in chopped liver. Just to please a friend.
Just to please a friend. It seemed to be Abe's mantra. His raison d'être!
Almost nightly, for the past ten years, I have taxied down Second Avenue past the Deli to my home in Brooklyn. Whenever I needed that ineffable kind of nurturing—Abe's kind—I stopped in for a visit. It was the natural place to go.
I still taxi down that avenue past the Deli. And I think of Abe often. He was that kind of friend.
Chicken Soup Live! with Regis & Kathie Lee
SERVES
4
This soup has amazing restorative powers.
8 cups chicken broth
1 pound chicken backs and necks
1 red onion, finely diced
2 leeks, finely diced
3 carrots, peeled and finely diced
2 celery ribs, finely diced
1 turnip, peeled and finely diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried basil leaves
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
Salt
Pepper
1. Put chicken broth in a pot, and bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients. Lower heat, cover, and cook 1 hour.
2. Remove chicken pieces, using tongs. Continue to simmer ½ hour longer.
3. Skim fat. Adjust seasonings by adding salt and pepper and additional chopped parsley to taste.
Optional:
Add 8 large matzo balls or add 2 cups cooked orzo, the juice of 1 lemon, and ¼ cup chopped fresh dill.
Adapted from
Little Meals: A Great New Way to Eat & Cook
(Villard Books, © 1993).

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