“Well, Bridge, 4 hours of careful cooking and a feast of blue soup, omelette and marmalade.”  —Bridget Jones Diary

Impromptu soups are not pantry soups with recipes but are soups that come out of other things – a leftover platter of crudité, a chicken carcass, some greens that are not fresh enough for salad, but can be cooked up to a savory treat and so forth.  All you need is a pot, some water, and a sense of adventure.  They are particularly well suited to winter when nasty weather keeps you from wandering the aisles and the fridge always seems to contain a little of this and a lot of that. And, they are economical to boot ‘cause you use up all the things that might otherwise go out the door.

I discovered impromptu soups years ago, while still a working cook. I was always disheartened by the waste when clearing the remains of a catered party. In particular, the aftermath of a cocktail party would usually find the once-beautiful crudité basket sitting, slightly askew, in unappetizing disarray with otherwise perfectly good vegetables beginning to wilt. One day, the lightening bulb finally went on and I thought – “why can’t I make soup?” Ever after, when the party ended, I would always find the largest pot in the kitchen and throw all of the crudité vegetables in, add a bit of water and any herbs that had been used for garnish, season the mixture well and leave it to simmer while I tidied up the kitchen. By the time we were ready to depart, a nice pot of soup was ready for the host. If I was still feeling energetic, I would hunt up a blender or food processor and purée the mixture. If not, I’d simply call it chunky vegetable soup and be done with it.  But, just in case the host was a novice cook, I always left a note giving instructions for reheating and/or storing. 

It all came back to me the other day when I remembered that I had thrown a roast chicken carcass (along with the remaining carrots, onions, potatoes, garlic, and juices left in the pan) in the freezer weeks before. The temperature was going down below freezing, so soup seemed like a great meal. Earlier in the day I had picked up a large chicken breast and a loaf of Sullivan Street bread, so a cheap and easy dinner was at hand.

I threw the carcass and its accompaniments into a cast iron pot along with some frozen stock. Filled it up with water, added a couple of bay leaves, half a lemon drying up in the fridge, a couple of unpeeled garlic cloves, and a few sprigs of wilted parsley. Put it on the fire and let it boil away for an hour or so.

When it was smelling so warm and inviting that I couldn’t wait for soup, I took it off the stove, drained it, and picked off whatever meat still clinging to the bones. Ladled off the fat and returned the broth to the pot. I removed the skin from the chicken breast and put it in the center of the pot. Diced up a couple of carrots, an onion, a couple of scallions, and a good amount of fregola sarda (a wonderful Sardinian pasta that resembles Israeli couscous) and put it on to simmer. Within 30 minutes, after I added half a box of frozen peas languishing in the freezer and a lonely baby bok choy (quickly chopped) that was hidden in the crisper drawer, dinner was ready.

And, it was an elegant one. I used large shallow soup bowls, laid a couple of slices of the chicken breast in the center, ladled in the thick soup, and grated Parmesan cheese (fresh from DiPalo’s on Grand Street) over the top. With hot bread and a glass of cheap pinot (Castle Rock is great), we dined in exquisite pleasure.  However, it wasn’t so economical – the chicken breast was $9.10 and the fregola was $7.99 for the box and the cheese was, well, you get it. But, not only did we have dinner, but a couple of lunches and a late night snack, so maybe, all in all, it was cheap eats!