Flu-Fighting and Air Way Opening Soup

The cold and flu season comes at the two worst times of the year: during the winter time and before a long flight overseas. Thing is the flight could be at any time of year and even more than once, it depends on how much you fly.

As it is not winter time in South Africa, I definitely have a long haul flight that I have to take. And you know what? I developed some sniffles earlier in the week. So I thought a soup would be the best way to cure my illness. Plus we all know that Grandma’s Chicken Noodle Soup has always been the way to cure any cold or flu.

Although a chicken soup is a great way to diminish any trace of a bug in your body, there are other great tools to ensuring you come out perfectly healthy! Epicurious has a list of six ingredients that should be in your flue fighting diet, the link for that is here.

So although I love a good chicken soup to fight any illness, I don’t ever go for the boring old chicken soup you get in a package, I like to spice it up. Literally. Mexican infused soup with a good kick makes it all that much better. I mean you get the chicken to fight the power, and chili to open your airways. Pretty perfect if you ask me!

I got the recipe from Food.com though the direct link to the recipe can be found here. Lately I’ve been thinking about chicken rice soup. Not chicken noodle, but rice. And I remember mom used to make chicken rice soup when my sister and I were kids. I remember hating it though. The faces I would make in our small kitchen in Ciudad Ojeda was pretty ridiculous. Especially with how I just made a chicken and rice soup right now. No idea why I wasn’t fond of the soup before because I quite like it today!

Mom’s Plate, with Avo on the Side

Ingredients:

• 6 cups (1,410ml) chicken stock
• ½ cup (97.5g) white basmati
• 1 cup (235ml) water
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup (200g) tomatoes, diced
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• ½ cup (75g) onion, chopped thinly
• ½ jalepeño, sliced and chopped
• 1 cup (125g) chicken breast, shredded
• ¼ cup (59ml) lime juice
• ½ cup (15g) cilantro, chopped
• ½ avocado, sliced (optional)

Instructions:

1. In a small pot, bring water to boil, once boiling add rice and turn heat to low and allow rice to simmer with lid on pot for 15 minutes.

2. In a separate pot (a large one), bring chicken stock to boil. Once boiling turn heat down and allow to simmer.

3. Finally in a small pan, fry chicken with salt and pepper seasoning until brown. Remove from pan once cooked and set aside. In same pan add olive oil and sauté onion and jalepeño for a minute until fragrant. Then remove from heat.

4. Chicken should be able to be handled now, so shred chicken and set aside.

5. Begin to fill bowl in these steps: 

   

   Solids in Soup before Broth

   1. Rice
   2. Onion/jalepeño mixture
   3. Tomato
   4. Cilantro
   5. Chicken
   6. Chicken stock
   7. Lime juice (only a teaspoon or more if desired)
   8. Avocado

6. Serve and enjoy!

Chicken and Rice soup with Avo

This was absolutely fantastic! Although I did completely forget about the lime juice, but with cilantro and jalepeño, who needs lime?

I loved this. Truly did. It was the right amount of kick to open up our airways and fight the illness that made its way into my body.

The thing about flying with a cold or flu is that you could be quarantined as a threat for having Ebola. And that isn’t even a lie. If I am flying from South Africa to Europe (which I will be) there is a big threat that anyone with a fever could have Ebola. That is something NO one wants. Especially when going from one continent to the next.

So a flu-fighting soup was the ultimate way to go.

I think this was a success. Though we will only see for sure tomorrow evening when I hop onto the 11 hour airplane to the Netherlands. My poor body will be in pain after sitting for hours on end!

AND we will go from 32C days to 6C days. Sooo cold. Luckily I’ll have my blanket sweater with me and my two pairs of boots. I’ll definitely be needing lots of tea and coffee from Starbucks to survive the cold.

Anyway, this is my meal for the evening and it was incredible! Chicken with pimiento in a soup is my favourite type of soup. If you end up making this I hope you enjoy it as much as my mother and I did.

Happy eating!