Chicken Rice Soup with Sweet Potatoes

January 16, 2022

This matters to me because...

I made this dish for the first time after watching a Bon Appetit video. The involvement and excitement to cook something--something healthy too--led to my increased interest in cooking. It also led the rabbit hole that is all cooking-related videos on YouTube. Though Bon Appetit has gone through its scandals, I appreciated that it got me into cooking.

Ingredients

Sweet potatoes
White rice
Chicken thighs
Garlic
Ginger
Water
Salt
Soy sauce
Cilantro
Black pepper
Lemon

2 Comments

Ginger soup in general is a great option for a "feel hearty" dish. The warmth from the soup itself, coupled with the peppery ginger is perfect for sick days. It was perfect for my covid days too. Adding garlic, chicken, and the sweet potatoes at the end make for a perfect meal.
I was quite satisfied with the doneness of the sweet potatoes. A combination of cutting them into larger pieces and adding them only about 8-10 minutes before serving makes it so that there's a tenderness to the sweet potatoes without them being mushy. Just....I hope that one day learn to wait at least 5 minutes for the soup to rest. I burn my mouth every time...

2 Learnings

Chicken thighs are very forgiving. Despite having it boil in water for what felt like forever, the chicken was still tender and juicy. Obviously, there's a threshold for how much overcooking can be done, but it's much better than chicken breast.
For some reason, I never thought of adding soy sauce to soups...perhaps it's because I had this thought that it is a sauce and therefore shouldn't be added into soups. Soups should be flavored by the ingredients you put in the water, not by mixing pre-made sauces. Sauces are for coating or for dipping. It shouldn't be diluted by just pouring into water. Maybe I'll experiment with adding other sauces into my soups.

References

There's really only one reference for this entry.

YouTube video that I heavily followed: link