Chicken soup for the flu-ridden soul

Chicken soup, experts note, can be the perfect food to eat when you have a cold and is very comforting when you have the flu as well.

A delicious bowl of hot chicken soup with lots of black pepper and lemon juice has a healing effect on the body and will help you get through your illness more easily than you might expect.

These days, with cold weather approaching, the flu is on everyone’s minds. Just the normal flu? Nope, swine flu, too. Though it has been a topic on the world agenda for months now, swine flu has rapidly spread across Turkey in recent weeks, and now people are carefully listening to advice from experts on how best to protect themselves. We try to erect barriers between ourselves and the H1N1 virus through vaccines, gels and many different kinds of disinfectants. At the same time though, we are forgetting to soothe our sinuses and our tonsils, which become irritated as a result of illnesses.

The flu is an illness we have always had to worry about with the arrival of colder weather. And we have dealt with it fearlessly over the years, using our own methods. How? With soup, an easy-to-digest food full of nutrients. There is one soup in particular so powerful in this realm that experts label it “a homemade remedy for the flu.” This soup is chicken soup, a dish many of us are familiar with from our own mothers, who would make it and serve it to us the moment we got ill. Even now, many experts advise having chicken soup as the first recourse for those struck down by winter illnesses. The medical world has confirmed the health benefits of this miraculous dish, one that grandmothers have known about for ages.

Making your own chicken broth

Ayfer Ünsal is a food expert who offers up advice on special ways of making your own chicken broth. Here’s what to do:

Ingredients: Two chicken thighs, with skin; one carrot, roughly chopped; one onion, quartered; a cinnamon stick; and two bay leaves.

Preparation: Place the chicken thighs, carrot, cinnamon stick, bay leaves and onion into a liter of water in a large pot. Boil this for around one hour. Then remove the chicken and other ingredients from the broth. You can place the chicken broth you now have in the freezer to be used later, which means that when the cold weather really arrives, you’ll have a hot, delicious and healthy broth to serve up at your table.

A good recipe

Ingredients: One chicken breast and one chicken thigh, with skin; two onions, quartered; two tablespoons of flour; three heads of garlic, crushed; two tablespoons of butter; and salt and black pepper to taste.

Preparation: Cook the chicken breast and thigh in water along with the onions. Remove the chicken meat after it’s boiled and chop it up finely. Sauté the flour and butter in a separate soup pot for around four minutes. Add the chicken broth bit by bit to this mixture. Then add the crushed garlic and the finely chopped bits of chicken meat. Boil this for another 15-20 minutes, and serve up with salt and pepper.

The benefits of chicken soup

• Opens up the sinuses.
• Helps you to breathe when your nose is blocked.
• Reduces coughing.
• Soothes joint pain.
• Helps rid the body of aches.

Good chicksoup spots in İstanbul

One place is Pangaltı Sütiş, where you can find a bowl of traditionally made chicken soup. A bowl of this delicious, healthy soup is only TL 4. Tel: 0(212)-248 58 52

Another spot to enjoy chicken soup alongside other homemade foods is Hünkar. Tel: 0(212)-287 47 70

Shorba is a soup spot where you’ll feel right at home. Soups here are TL 6.75  Tel: 0(216)-360 89 97