Mexican Chicken Soup, Or The Tragic Tale of The Demon Rooster

If you think I'm going to recount a happy tale where my Mexican mother served me this chicken soup with its clear delicately flavored broth with corn on the cob(!) with potatoes, zucchini and a wonderful green squash named chayote whenever I got sick with the cold, where she cooled my childish fevered brow and sang me sweet Spanish lullabies as she held me in her arms, you are most sadly mistaken.

Because whenever any of us had a cold and my mother needed some chicken for caldo de pollo—Mexican style chicken soup, there was no need to pick up a cut-up fryer in a neat little package at the local supermarket. All she had to do was ask my dad to head out to the back of the property with his cuchillote (coo-chi-yo'teh)—big fat knife in hand, grab one of the chickens, usually the rooster who was the meanest of the bunch, and cut its uppity little head clean off.

And thus begins this grisly tale of murder, mayhem and good food. If you are of a person of squeamish weak-stomached sensibilities, read no further. If not, then by all means read on, but be afraid, be very afraid, especially if your name is El Gallo Grillo, The Demon Rooster who became the best Mexican Chicken Soup I have ever tasted.

How was El Grillo to know that cool bright January morning in 1977 that this day of all days was to be his last? It seemed no different than any other day. Donning his resplendent robe of iridescent black plumage, he did the sort of things that any tall, handsome Andalusian Cock of the Walk would do: strutting around el corral like a mariachi singer while loudly "proclaiming" his undying love for himself, romancing his harem of hens who followed him like brainless groupies, and his favorite past time of all: attacking any animal, vegetable or mineral who dared intrude upon his domain or challenged his barnyard sovereignty.

How I wish that my father had done to him what he usually did to other outlaw roosters: get them drunk on cheap tequila to perform a crude but necessary surgery, namely amputate their razor-like talons. Often I held them down as he cut using a sharp steel knife. Before you think that this is nothing short of barbaric, no rooster ever died as a result of this procedure and it prevented any from getting severely injured in a cock fight, which is the sad reality if there is more than one Alpha Male hanging around. (Let this be a cautionary lesson to any Alpha Males reading this post.)

I guess ending up in a pot of caldo de pollo was a high price to pay for attacking the real
El Mero Mero (The Big Kahuna) de la familia—my papá, especially when El Grillo tore the trousers of his favorite suit and bloodied his legs.

He didn't mean to kill him, but like King David of old when he slew Goliath, my papá, taking a rock to protect himself, threw the perfect strike that would have made Dodger baseball player Fernando Valenzuela proud and he hit El Grillo on the head. Suddenly, that demon rooster toppled over and uttered his last cluck. So my papá had no choice but to take out his cuchillote and finish the job.

Later that afternoon my sisters and I came home from an outing and found El Grillo, minus his head, floating in a galvanized tub of hot water. We knew what this meant—we had to change out of our finery and start plucking every last feather off of his sorry carcass. Our parents' ace-in-the-hole reply when we howled in protest? "Bueno, chiquitas, if you're old enough to take an interest in boys, you're old enough to pluck the feathers off a chicken. Ahora pónganse a trabajar—Now get to work!" And like good Mexican girls that we were we did exactly what we were told.

I still remember his pathetic chicken legs sticking out of the pot of soup that my mother made. I was sickened by the sight of it back then, but I realize now that those patitas of his packed a ton of flavor to the Mexican style chicken soup—no need to add any bouillon at all. And the soup? None better—the perfect alchemy of the foods of Spain (chicken, garbanzo beans, rice) and Mexico (almost everything else).

Frankly, I must admit, for all of his fierceness, for all of his banter and macho pride which bordered on hubris—for a chicken—El Grillo really was a magnificent creature. When my family gets together we still talk of him with an odd mixture of affection and guilt for having eaten him—plus a bit of grudging respect.

How I miss those fat organic chickens with their amazingly rich broth. And the fresh fertilized eggs with their bright yellow-orange yolks. No more listening to the El Grillo and his ilk singing it up at 4 o'clock in the morning. All I have now are memories and a true love for good food and for the quietly heroic people of rural Mexico who, like my parents, have come to this country and still have chickens and goats in their backyards, whether they live in Los Angeles, Houston—or even Orange County. (Do The Real Housewives of Orange County keep chickens in their backyards, I wonder?)

El Grillo, I know you can't hear me, but if it is any consolation, diablito este—you little devil, you made a sabrosísimo—yummy soup and give you my gracias.

Mexican Chicken Soup with Corn-on-the-Cob

The trick to making this clear flavorful broth is to boil the chicken twice. Try it—you won't lose a bit of flavor, and you'll never have to eat cloudy, scummy chicken broth again. Plus, you won't have a lot of fat shining back at you. As always, you can choose which vegetables you want in the soup. When serving your family or guests, make sure to have some left over Mexican rice, cut lemons or limes, chopped serrano chilies for heat or hot chili salsa so they can add it to the soup if they wish.

(Note: If your are cooking an anemic chicken from the supermarket, you can cheat a little and add a bouillon cube when you add the vegetables to the soup if you want.)

What you need:

Large pot for soup.

A platter or roasting pan

Chopping knife

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, split in half

For Soup:
About 11 cups water
1 carrot, uncut
½ large onion
3 or 4 cloves garlic
2 celery stalks, cut in half
About 8 pepper corns
1/4 bunch of fresh cilantro with stems attached; OR, fresh parsley
3 ears corn, cut about 2 ½ inches each
2 medium sized white boiling potatoes, chopped (optional)
1 or 2 carrots, cut into thin disks
1 cup thin-sliced onion
½ cup garbanzos (chickpeas), (optional)
2 zucchinis, sliced into disks
1 cup cooked white rice; OR, 1 cup leftover Mexican rice (optional)
Instructions:
Put washed chickens in the large pot, and add water just cover them. Over high heat, bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium. When the water is cloudy and scummy, remove the chicken from the pot and place it on the roasting pan or platter. Empty out the water and wash the pot. Next, add 11 cups of fresh water to the pot. Rinse the chicken under the tap, carefully removing any scum with your fingers. Return the chicken to the pot.
Add celery stalks, cilantro, uncut carrot, garlic, ½ onion, salt and pepper corns to the pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium-low and simmer covered for about 25 minutes. Add garbanzos and simmer for 35 minutes more.
Remove chicken and return to roasting pan. Remove celery stalks, the uncut carrot, the 1/2 onion and cilantro, and toss them out. (Do not toss out the garlic and the garbanzos). Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes, covered, or until the corn is tender-firm or tender, but not mushy. Cut chicken into manageable pieces and return to the pot.