Tempting Texas Chicken Tortilla Soup
November 5, 2007 by Kimberly
One of my very favorite soups…I crave it! It seems like quite a few ingredients and it takes 2 hrs or so, but it is WELL worth the wait…Trust me! This is an family favorite and satisfies everyone! – Kimberly Edwards
Type: Soup
Serve With: Shredded cheese and sour cream
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 2 hr
Yield: 1 large stock pot full
Ingredients:
Instructions:
1. Fill stock pot 3/4 full of cold water with sea salt, peppercorns, coriander seeds, bay leaves, and 2 lime leaves.
2. Rinse chicken pieces and put in water on medium heat. You may use frozen chicken for this if desired.
3. Wash and chop carrots, celery, onion very roughly. Keep garlic cloves whole, just peel skins off. Add to pot.
4. Allow to boil and turn down heat to simmer. Lightly boil/simmer for about 1.5 hrs or until chicken is tender and falling off the bone.
* Take a piece of chicken out of the pot, and make sure the chicken juice runs clear when cut near the bone.
* Tip: Some brown foam may rise to the top of the pot, so take a large spoon and skim off the brown foam off the top and discard. These are the ‘impurities’. You may have to do this a few times before the soup boils clean.
5. Once chicken is ‘falling off the bone’, fish out all the chicken out of the pot and allow to cool. Once cool, shred chicken by picking off the bones and pulling apart every piece. Set aside to add to each individual bowl.
6. While waiting for chicken to cool, find garlic in pot and crush, with the side of a wooden spoon, into the soup.
7. Dice 2 whole, ripe tomatoes into small pieces. Dice 1 serrano pepper (I cannot get fresh serranos where I live in Canada, so I use canned serrano peppers.) Add to the soup while continuing to let simmer.
* Tip: Put remainder of can of serrano peppers into a Ziploc freezer bag and freeze for subsequent uses.
8. Add beer, ground cumin, chili powder, other 2 lime leaves, and hot sauce to soup and continue to simmer.
9. Once chicken is shredded for serving, take cornstarch in a small bowl and add same amount of cold water. Take a whisk to mix completely, then add to soup.
* Tip: The cornstarch will thicken up the soup and will only reach it’s thickening power when the soup boils. If you boil it too much, the cornstarch will then lose it’s thickening power. So, as soon as the soup boils for about 1 min after adding cornstarch mixture (a slurry), turn it down/off.
10. To prepare individual bowls for serving, add a good amount of shredded chicken, then add desired amount of soup. Garnish top of soup with tortilla/corn chips (the more the better), shredded cheese and sour cream.
11. Serve and Enjoy! I know you will!
I hope you enjoy this soup like we do! Let me know if you loved today’s installment of Cooking With Kimberly! Until next time…
Eat Deliciously,
Kimberly Edwards 
P.S. If you need a stock pot, I found this great one that is of great quality! Check it out here:
Technorati Tags: tortilla, tortilla soup, soup, chicken, Mexican, chicken tortilla soup, Texas recipes, chicken, Tex-Mex recipe, Tex-Mex
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We just tried this this weekend, and I’ve got to tell you it was awesome! We couldn’t find lime leaves, and added a half t-spoon of cayenne into the mix instead of hot sauce….