Lemon and Fennel Infused Poached Chicken with Orzo Soup

The true beauty of merging a few simple flavours together is phenomenal. You can taste one flavour through another with the mere effort of submerging into heated water. To poach, is to simmer one flavour into another through the surrounding liquid. The recipe is centred on this exact cooking technique to not only create a light and rather satisfying dish but also to validate how simple, inexpensive and easy it can be to create a meal in minutes that looks a million bucks.

Truth be told, I created this recipe a little while ago and I am only releasing it now. Why? Well I originally figured this recipe was targeted more towards the comforting food we need during the cooler Autumn/Winter seasons. Now, as I get to publish this recipe, I am re-thinking my originals intentions - This soup is no soup fit for ONLY cold weather. The infusion of lemon and fennel, are flavours also perfect for the spring and summer. It’s a year round recipe that can be adapted to your formal dinner party or as a great meal prep option.

The Infusion

Poaching is a rather underrated cooking technique that actually means less oil, less time and the ability to infuse a variety of different flavours in the matter of minutes. When it comes to chicken, have you ever found that it’s just too easy to over cook chicken breast to the point where it becomes overly dry, chewy and almost grainy? The power of poaching is subtle. This subtleness is effective when cooking chicken breast as it really only needs a few minutes of direct heat compared with tougher, more leaner parts of the chook like the thigh or leg.

What many people mess up when it comes to poaching, is leaving the chicken in the hot liquid too long which ultimately leads to overcooking. Another common mistake is bringing the stock to a rolling boil for a long period of time, then adding the chicken in which basically cooks the outside immediately without having started to cook the inside . The key to successful poaching is to place the breast of chicken into room temperature water. Add your flavour elements you wish to infuse - in this cake I have used lemon and fennel - and then straight onto the heat. Bring the water up to a boil and then turn the heat off. Cover the pot and lave for a further 5-8 minutes.

For thinner parts of chicken, they may only need one or two minutes to completely cook in the stock whereas thicker parts need longer. The best way to make sure your chicken is cooked is to pierce a fork or knife into a section and slightly pull it apart. If it begins to bleeds a pink fill or is still pink inside, this means the chicken is not cooked and needs longer. If the flesh is white and strings apart easily, remove from the liquid.

The best part of poaching, regardless of if you’re using chicken, duck or vegetables, is the resulting liquid you are left with. You have, in fact, made your own stock, often very over looked but it in fact holds a great deal of flavour and is one hundred percent natural. Stock, bought from the store in powder, liquid or cube form, often contains a lot of preservatives and/or flavour enhances. These are not great for the human body, apart from allowing our food to taste great (often almost too much). Flavour enhances often contain a toxin (MSG is most commonly known but there are others too) that has addictive properties - once the taste buds get a feel for it, they want more. These toxins also can cause obesity’

“Numerous researchers around the world are using MSG as a tool to create obese rats and mice to carry out research on. That’s right!

MSG is injected into these poor animals simply to make them obese for research purposes.” (reference)

In making your own poached chicken, you are also making your own chicken stock used for the soup in this recipe. Win win, no?

Other infusions

There is really no limits when it comes to what flavours you wish to impart in the chicken. It comes down to seasonal availability and personal preferences. Some other ingredients I love to work with when poaching chicken are;

• parsley

• cumin

• all spice

• star anise

• whole pepper corns (red, black, white)

• thyme

• honey

• rosemary

• apple

• lemongrass

• bay leaves

• orange

• onion

I just named a few of my other “go to” ingredients when it comes to poaching. Maybe you have noticed, but these are all rather sturdy, flavour dominating and rich ingredients. This allows the strength of their flavour to carry through the water and into the other ingredients (in this case the chicken). If you use more subtle favours or fruits which are rather watery like cranberries, tomatoes or shallots, means a much more subtle or weak tasting stock and chook.

Storing

Like many of my other recipes, storing is essential because they are larger amounts and also can be ideal for meal prep. Storing chicken is a little different than vegan or vegetarian dishes. Once you warm the left overs once, it can be hazardous to warm it again. This is due to the bacteria that can be very harmful to us humans, that grows in the chicken when heated and cooled.

Left overs should be cooled completely before placing into containers and refrigerating. We do not want those condensation particles to form in the contain as this is what can cause the bad bacteria to grow. Once cooled, dish out portion sizes so you can warm up what is needed the following time. You can also place in one large container and make sure to dish out what you need into a bowl and warm only that up.

For freezing, follow the cooling and containing process as above. Freeze and defrost only what you need. The best way to defrost soup is to remove it from the freezer around 6-8 hours before meal time, then all that is needed is to place into a small pot and bring to a gentle simmer - you’ll be good to go in under 10 minutes. You can also microwave it if you prefer, but I find that the liquid and whole chunks of food never defrost at an even speed so you’ll have extremely hot liquid while still having frozen chicken.

Growing this toxic bacteria isn’t something that you should be afraid of, just have it in mind so you take the precautionary steps to try to avoid it. I have heated chicken soup up several times and never gotten it but this isn’t wise as you just never know.

Anyway I hope you enjoy this recipe. Try to use poaching into your other everyday cooking - try with tofu, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, fish, pork etc - as it really is a great way to reduce the amount of frying as well as integrating other flavours into a rather bland cut of chicken. Making your own stock is really also another hot tip that is wholesome and delicious. Great for boosting the immune system (be chicken or veggie stock).

xx Cecile

Lemon and Fennel Infused Poached Chicken with Orzo Soup

Ingredients

• 2 organic chicken breasts

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 lemon, juiced

• 1/2 lemon, zest

• 1/2 large onion, thinly sliced

• 2 garlic clove, diced

• 1 stalk celery, thinly sliced

• 1 handful fennel leaves 

• 1.5 L organic chicken stock

• 1 cup orzo

• 1 tsp salt

• Lemon wedges for serving 

Method

In a large pot, sauté the onion, salt and celery with olive oil for 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and lemon zest, cook for a further minute.

Add stock, fennel leaves, chicken and lemon juice, bring to the boil. Once boiling, turn the heat off and cook for 5-10 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink when cut open.

Remove chicken and rest on a plate. Once cooled, shred using two forks. Set aside.

Add the orzo to the liquid and cook according to the insurrections (normally 10-12 minutes).

Add the shredded chicken back into the pot once the orzo is cooked.

Warm through and serve immediately with extra lemon and fennel leaves.