Canja de Galinha (aka Brazilian chicken soup)

Every culture seems to have its own version of chicken noodle soup. The local version of every grandmother’s arsenal for fending off the flu might include noodles as in North America and Asia or rice, as in Brazil. Known as canja in Portuguese, it is usually a simple affair of using leftover rice and chicken. Since both Alan and I were feeling a bit under the weather and we had a leftover bbq chicken sitting in the fridge, I thought I would give it a try using three different kinds of rice. I first made a huge pot of chicken broth with the carcass, nearly 3 liters. For the canja I used:

• 1 1/2l of chicken broth
• 1 cup of white wine
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 2 tbsp tamari sauce
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp miso paste
• 4 small carrots, diced
• 1/2 a small squash, diced
• 2 small onions, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, grated
• 4 sundried tomatoes
• 2 celery ribs, finely diced
• 1-2 cups leftover bbq chicken
• 1/2 cup short grain brown rice
• 1/4 cup wild rice
• 1/4 cup red rice
• salt & pepper to taste

After frying the onions, celery, garlic, carrots, tomatoes and squash in the olive oil for a few minutes, I added the chicken, rice, and white wine and covered the pot for a few minutes. Once the wine had evaporated, I added 1 1/2l of broth, some pepper and brought it to a simmer. Half way through (15 mins) I added the tamari sauce and let it simmer for another 15 mins. Once the rice and carrots were soft enough, I added the parsley and let it simmer another couple of minutes. I then turned off the heat and diluted 2 tbsp of light miso in a small bowl using 1/2 cup of the soup broth. I poured the miso into the soup, tried some and adjusted the salt (miso and tamari are salty so you might not need to add much salt).

The resulting soup was quite colourful and hearty:

Alan really liked it!

And I still had nearly 2 liters of broth left for another day!

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