Mom’s Rosol - Chicken Soup

I dug out my mom’s old Polish chicken soup - rosol - recipe about a month ago. There really wasn’t much to it except the basic ingredients. She always had to cook things without pepper or spices because my dad had a stomach ulcer. So we made the soup but didn’t really do everything that we were supposed to. This I found out after it was made and had spoken to a cousin and aunt about how they make it. Apparently you never cook the noodles in the soup. The egg noodles are made separately and the soup is then poured over the noodles. And, I didn’t put the pot in the refrigerator overnight for the fat to float to the top and then be removed. So the next time we made the soup we weren’t able to get a soup bone, but did get something like it - but the marrow was not enough. But this time we did put the pot in the refrigerator over night and we made the noodles separately. After the first serving there was enough to last for another meal. So the second time we added in some spinach to give it some color. Her original recipe called for vegetable flakes - not something that we could find anywhere. So we ended up using bits of celery, onions and carrots. All I know is that it tasted wonderful regardless of the way we made it. My cousin suggested using a whole chicken rather than just the chicken breasts - the kind you buy that’s already cooked. She said it adds more flavor after first munching on the wings and other bits. Maybe we’ll try that next time. It’s the kind of thing that reminds you of home. What could be better than that? 

Mom’s Home Made Rosol - Polish Chicken Soup

I haven’t made this recipe in centuries. In fact, I can’t remember when I last made it. It’s my mom’s Polish chicken soup - better known as Rosol, but sounds different than it is spelled. So I dug out the recipe I had written down as my mother was saying it all those years ago. When we went to the grocery store this week we picked up the soup bones and the parsley flakes. I couldn’t find vegetable flakes anywhere so we ended up getting chopped up celery, onions and carrots. We initially thought we would use elbow macaroni, but I wanted to stay true to the recipe and went back later in the week to pick up egg noodles. So we started with three quarts of water and added the chicken and soup bones, boiled them and simmered it for an hour. Then we added the whole onion, salt, parsley flakes, and bay leaves and left it to simmer for three hours. My mom always had to make bland meals because my dad had stomach ulcers - so spicy and peppery flavors were never used. It didn’t matter because the aroma in the house took me back decades. Towards the end we added in the noodles and it looked so good! My mom didn’t make the soup very much because it was always so hot in the Florida weather. So it was a real treat to not only make it, but smell it, and eat it heartily. We may end up adding other things to it the next time - spinach or other vegetables. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to make! It was really comfort food and it reminded me of my heritage - and my mom.