I think I'd want to start with a bone-in chicken and/or start with bone broth for more richness. I think lots of garlic and ginger is healing and soothing.

Jewish chicken soup doesn't have the heat. I've heard that it has some antibiotic properties, but even if true that won't help a virus, though perhaps it could help with potential secondary infection.

What works with the soup is a combination between a lot of rich nutrients and lots of steam.

Use whole chickens and simmer until there's nothing edible left in them--just some strings of cooked out muscle texture and squishy bones. Same with the vegetables. Cook them until the good is out of the veg and into the soup. It's true that you'll lose some water soluble vitamins to steam, but some will remain. Carrots and onions are a must. Celery/celeriac is good. Anything else is up to you.

Season to taste after the soup is made. That includes all those hots and aromatics. I'd do that part fresh for the serving, rather than putting them in the basic soup. Add whatever meat and veg for serving too. The ones you made the soup out of should be inedible by the time it's done.

(There is another kind of Jewish chicken soup which is made from the water a boiled chicken was cooked in, but that's a way of capturing every last bit of nutrition from the bird, and filling more tummies, rather than a way of making sick soup.)

For all that good head clearing, if Mrs. John Liu can eat rich and cheesy pasta, I can recommend radiatore in marsala pepper cheese sauce. For the sauce, make a roux, then turn it into a white sauce or velouté (I prefer the former, but either will work). Add some goodly slugs of marsala and lots of ground black pepper. Optionally, stir in a chopped onion sautéed to translucent. Garlic is also optional. Add lots of broken or grated strong cheeses that need using up, including heels, and plenty of romano or asiago. Stir in al dente radiatore and get them good and piping hot with the sauce all caught up in the spines of the pasta. Optionally, finish with a good grind of pepper and some grated parm or romano for pretties. Eat right away, really physically hot.

It has all the "comfort food" of mac and cheese, but the pepperiness of the wine and the pepper and funk of the cheese cut through that sickie can't taste anything, and combined with the heat, irritate the mucosa enough to loosen the crap and get it out. It's also a great way to apply a hot compress to the underside of the sinuses (i.e., roof of mouth). It's also delicious if you're not sick, but really really good for what ails ya. And yes, you can substitute spirals if you don't have radiatore but radiatore really are a lot better at the hot compress part. Serve with a box of kleenex.

Perhaps you need some Jewish ancestry to make this work, but here's the chicken soup recipe that comes with my genetics:

In a big pot, mostly filled with water, add the following:

12 chicken thighs - with the skin and bones

3 stalks of celery cut into 4" chunks

1 large turnip - peeled and cut into bit-size chunks

1 large onion - peeled and diced

3 large carrots - peeled and cut into chunks

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano - all to taste

Bring the water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and leave it alone for 6 hours. I have never had this fail to cure the common cold.

Why just deal with symptoms? Trying something that is healing.

Go to a Chinese store and buy a Silky chicken (black chicken) and a package of herbs similar to this one, (much cheaper than Amazon}:

https://www.amazon.com/Herbal-Nutritious-Chicken-%E7%87%89%E9%9B%9E%E6%B9%AF%E6%96%99%E5%8C%85-Sevings/dp/B078YHSS98/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?keywords=chinese+medicinal+soap&qid=1575809808&sr=8-2-fkmr1

Or Go to youTube and search "Chinese medicinal chicken soup".

dcarch

Olychick, that's a good idea and I'll use some homemade broth from the freezer for my next attempt. Ricky, your recipe is essentially the base for what I'm trying out. (Come to think of it, I remember that matzo ball soup also helped with colds, I guess the matzo is basically a big hot sponge for chicken soup.)

So what to add?

Spicy food that help reduce congestion seen to include ginger, chiles, mustard, horseradish, radishes, and raw onion / garlic. I can add some of these to the soup.

Chicken is credited as contributing something called cysteine, which supposedly reduces mucus. So maybe some of the chicken should be liquified rather than solid, to increase exposure?

I am seeing some mentions of tumeric. I'm not sure how tumeric helps treat a cold but the color is nice, so in you go.

It would be nice to include something to soothe sore throats. I can't see putting honey in soup (?). Nor enough salt to replicate a salt water gargle. Maybe some fat or oil?

http://healthpsych.psy.vanderbilt.edu/HotSoup.htm

https://www.thespruceeats.com/spicy-foods-that-help-fight-congestion-3877348

https://www.goodfood.com.au/recipes/coldbusting-chicken-soup-20140625-3asfo

Add to the above Polish and Asian influences.

I'm making mine this afternoon. It has many names but all based on the weather...'Storm Soup', 'Head-storm Soup', 'FU February', FU Work Week'....

I made my bone broth the week before Thanksgiving. Chicken stock the week before that. Frozen. Some pints have the meat.

You need to visit an H Mart or 99Ranch. Whichever has the best butcher. Bones. meaty bones like pork necks, marrow bones cut into coins, duck and chicken paws, anything you can find. Our Italian butcher has a 'bag-o-bones'.

One whole chicken, cut up into parts. Add the backbone to the bag-o-bones and instapot or pressure cook. To smithereens or however you usually make stock in those.

Burdock root, ginger, turmeric, garlic, parsnip, leek, onion, green onion. diakon, celery, Anything green/white. Nothing red/orange...not sure why but something to do with voodoo. (tumeric is neon but it gets a pass)...lemons.

Get some dry noodle choices, rice, frozen dumplings...and a pint of kimchi. Miso and some dried mushrooms.

No salt. (another voodoo reason unsure but might be dehydrating)

Back burner hob stockpot. Chicken parts, onion, leek green tops, burdock, all the veg chopped in coins, ginger, turmeric, 3 whole heads of garlic cut in half. A green hot pepper. Aromatics like bay leaves, peppercorns, coriander seed, star anise, etc.

Simmer all day. Take out and pick the chicken meat usually after 1.5 hours. Bones back into stockpot. Chill meat in fridge. Make rice and a couple noodle choices. Bean thread or wide egg, a few dumplings. Chill in fridge for choices.

Strain bone broth and add a few cups of the chicken broth ladled off kept warm on a hob for cups of broth to sip. Pour over requested rice, noodles, or dumplings if wanted.

Soak a cup of mixed dried mushrooms in 3 cups of hot water for an hour. Strain and add 1/4 cup miso and a boatload of grated fresh ginger and tumeric, lots of black pepper, fresh lemon juice, a glug of honey. Chill in fridge. Add a tbsp or 2 to broth for another sipping choice.

Spa water. In a half gallon water jug, matchstick ginger and tumeric, cracked black pepper, sliced lemon, an orange or grapefruit, pineapple, any citrus...good for 24 hours of fluids. Keep topping off with fresh water. Keep chilled in fridge.

^can be heated with a favorite tea bag and honey.

A good meal for the entire family to keep the evil 'head storm' from spreading.

We are having the miso/mushroom broth, a pint of bone and pho broth from the freezer with mixed grain from last nights salmon dinner...black caviar lentils, quinoa, winter wheat, brown rice. DH wants edamame noodles and sesame crusted/seared tofu...

Seems a big to-do but prep is under an hour from scratch. All is good for 3 days. Stocks/broth can be frozen.

Turmeric is anti-inflamatory.

A friend gave me a gummy worm last week. I'm afraid of it. : ) If I catch a common cold or get the aches from respiratory issues maybe I'll sample it.

Tumeric is on the 'hot' list of beneficial foods. I don't necessarily buy into hyped foods but the top twenty are all packed with all the good a food item can provide. HMart has fresh tumeric in bags of about 20 roots for 3-4 bucks. I have to freeze it.

Any help I can get from the coughing, sore muscles, the congestion, I'll consider for my soups. We just have 'tough work week' repair needed today.

Mise en place. Miso/mushroom concentrate complete.

(I do have horseradish that I grow but have not used it in soups...I should consider)

Ricky's recipe is almost exactly the one I have except it also has parsley and dill. I agree on using (or making) a good bone broth as the base.

Sorry that someone's under the weather.

When I'm making chicken soup for a cold, I always use some cayenne pepper & turmeric, lots of garlic and fresh parsley, along with carrots (for vit. A) & onion. I like bowtie pasta in my chicken soup, but barley is more soothing and might help a sore throat, I think.

I like to use chicken legs &/or thighs for soups. Dark meat doesn't get as stringy & mealy as white meat does when cooked for a long time.

I forgot I like cilantro and parsley stems in my broth. Near the end of the all day simmer. Fresh leaves to the table. Garnish.

I did some reading on sore throat remedies. Some of the popular ones could possibly be incorporated in a soup. For example:

- several bags of "Throat Coat" tea could go in the soup. "Throat Coat herbal tea contains licorice root, elm inner bark, marshmallow root, and licorice root aqueous dry extract and is sold to help relieve sore throat."

- sage and echinacea spray is used for sore throats, so maybe those ingredients could be added to soup?

Do you want the soup to taste like medicine?

I make some different soups... depends on if I'm the sick one or not, lol.

My first and pretty much only fast 'cheater" is a box of Manischewitz Matzo ball soup... simmer up a chicken breast or some thighs in the broth while you are mixing up the ball dough and cutting up veggies.... add in some carrot, tater, celery, turnip is nice to add too. Spike your matzo balls with a good hit of black pepper, some parsley, oregano, and thyme, and a bit of garlic powder. If you save your chicken or turkey schmaltz, you can use that instead of oil in your balls. If you don't want to add meat and/or want to fat up your broth, you can hit it with a bit of schmaltz too.

After your chicken is cooked and your ball dough has rested, remove the chicken. Then add in your veggies and let get back up to a boil. Then add your balls. After the balls are cooked, add your meat back in to reheat. Dice or shred your meat as you like.

Homemade soup is a different affair. I would say don't use so much salt/packaged broth. Lots of salt can make someone retain water amongst other things, and you don't really want that. Homemade broth is where it's at. My next couple batches of "chicken" soup are going to be turkey soup, got 4 lovely quarts of stock in the freezer. Tried the oven method this year, with the thanksgiving carcass, worked really nice.

I think a thing about homemade stock is that you can control the salt and herbs/vegs- and you also get all that gelatin yummy flavorful goodness from the bones. When you have jiggly cold stock, you got a wonderful throat coating soothing agent once its hot soup. An alternative with commercial broths is to add a packet or two of unflavored powdered gelatin but... it's just not the same IMO.

Turmeric is good for you, and can be added to your soup- but to hit medicinal, you might make a mighty yellow and taste difference there- maybe opt for a more chicken curry soup with rice or noodles and warm spices good for sick like cumin, ginger, garlic, mustard, cinnamon.... most curry spices are warming. Turmeric also plays nice with squash, sweet potato, and carrot, so you can do a chicken broth/meat with these veggies... mmmm.

A tea of lemon, cinnamon, a good hit of turmeric, a bit of black pepper, and a bit of honey is a great way to use turmeric for sick too.

Something different is make the soup with Asian seasonings, veggies.. spinach and chicken broth and meat. Much like what sleevendog has... and that sounds wonderful, I'm going to have to try that out. Thanks sleevendog :)

Wanna harness chilis? Chicken tortilla soup. You can add cumin, chili, cilantro, garlic, oregano and beans (or not), sweet peppers... or leave it more brothy and serve over some rice if the sick is more stomach delicate and garnish or not with tortilla strips. A splash of lime juice ups the flavor and vitamin C. White chicken chili is also a nice departure from the standard chicken soup.

Greek lemon rice chicken soup is wonderful, but I have no idea how to make a really good batch of the stuff.

I recommend the Chinese hot and sour soup for nasal congestion. It is a light chicken broth soup that uses lots of lime juice as I recall.

Yes, gelatin should help coat a throat, shouldn't it? I'll add that to the things to try.

Plllog, good question. I think if we develop enough chicken flavor, it can hold up against some degree of other tastes - a question of degree.

I'd just give her throat coat tea and leave it out of the soup. I like blackberry brandy for a throat soother as well as a cough inhibitor. I can't remember which brand but the one with only natural flavors, no artificial ones.

No, it can't. That is, the rich chicken stock will hold up to nice flavors, like pepper or ginger, but not to medicinal herbs. They'll just wreck it. There is nothing worse when you're sick than people gleefully slipping medicine into nice things like orange juice, chocolate and chicken soup. FAH!! Don't do it. If she swallows down the medicine, and some water to clear her palate, she can have a soup chaser as a reward.

I love the matzah ball as sponge idea, but the matzah ball, from a healing point of view, is there for the glucose ("energy") and it's wiggly and soothing on the way down. The big star of matzah ball soup in this case is the good chicken soup it's floating in.

I agree with Sheilajoiyce about the hot and sour soup when you're sick if it's light chicken soup. Especially the kind that shows up at your door piping hot. If it's greasy pork soup, not so much...

For a medicinal chicken soup you want a broth/stock you can walk on....one that is so gelatinous when cold it's like jello that you didn't add enough water to. and the way you get that result is with lots of bits with skin and cartilage.
I save chicken skin to make broth.....and then in addition to any backs, extra skin, fill a pot with wings. No need to use the drumstick part, you can save that for another purpose but lots of wing tips and the second joint. Add salt, a chopped onion or 2, the leafy ends from a bunch of celery, the stems of a bunch of parsley, a carrot, 5 or 6 cloves of garlic and half a lemon, squeeze the juice and toss in the rind. If it's a big pot and a small lemon you want to add the whole thing.
Simmer for at least 6 hours, allow to cool a bit and strain out the solids.
Then you can make your soup....adding onion, celery, the meat from the fat part of the wings which you saved out of the pot and some carrot buttons ( not dice....must be buttons!) and add lots of freshly ground black pepper and some cooked noodles....or rice.....real wild rice, not black paddy rice, is a great addition!!

My Mother was Polish, not sure if her chicken soup is or not, but she always cooked bone in chicken for the broth, seasonings were, salt, pepper, and cabbage toward the end. Cook egg noodles in water, then ladle the chicken broth with cabbage over the drained egg noodles. We love it.

Sue

Sorry, I made a mistake above. It is silkie chicken, not silky chicken.

Supposedly, silkie chickens (black chickens) :

"---- Black chicken is rich in antioxidants (carnosince) that help fight off various sicknesses and even have positive effects on ones speech skills, auditory gains, motor skill development and eyesight. The amount of carnosince levels in black chicken is twice the amount found in regular chickens.

These benefits combined with the benefits of the additional ingredients before is why people love eating herb-stewed black chicken. It is said to help the lungs, blood and stomach. ---"

Pretty video. Not sure what she is doing, may be someone can translate:

dcarch

Medicinal chicken soup v2 was successful.

Packaged broth (I have homemade but trying to develop a recipe that doesn't need it).

Chicken thighs, cut up, cooked, chopped pretty fine in food processor, and 1/4 of it processed further to a paste (a shortcut to improve the broth and also I thought very small pieces could be less throat-irritating)

Corn (canned), and finely cubed (okay, brunoised) zucchini. These are a substitute for rice, for the sufferor on a keto diet.

Lots of browned mushrooms, plus carmelized onion, garlic, and roasted red cabbage. This happened to be unused mise from an omellette brunch that we didn't have on Sunday. Plus diced celery, two peeled and diced tomatoes, and a diced red pepper (the last for color). Some *lemon juice*.

I figured it needs to look good, to entice the patient with no appetite.

A couple branches from my *sage* bush, that I fished out from the soup before serving. Plenty of *turmeric* (for color as well as effect), some *dried red chile pepper and wasabi* (for decongestant heat).

Then herbs, s & p, and big knob of *butter and some olive oil* (for throat coating - I didn't have any gelatin but would have tried that too),

This was all ready to eat in about 90 minutes.

Our non-sick friend liked it, and mentioned that it cleared her sinuses. SWMBO hasn't given a verdict yet but she hasn't yelled any complaint - helps that she's lost her voice :-). I liked it.

Do you think this will freeze okay? If so I might make another batch and freeze portions. The cold and flu season is just starting...

John Liu - you're really funny.

The basic soup will freeze fine. The cabbage might go limp, but cabbage soup isn't icky after freezing. The mushrooms might go rubbery. The fine brunoise zucchini will probably fall apart. But it'll likely be okay, at least, though fresh veg would be better.

Well, surely it would be a flavorful pureed soup if it didn't freeze well and still be able to clear those sinuses and also be soothing to the throat!

Started on some yesterday but I roasted the chicken parts with onions then deglaze the tin to get that rich flavour that I always feel is missing if you start with boiling. The lot went into the stock pot with fresh onions and other aromats. Then strained and reduced down. The chicken went into the bin as there was no flavour left.

I'm thinking about developing a process that uses a store-bought rotisserie chicken.

For those not familiar with Costco, their fully cooked rotisserie roasted chickens are no more expensive per pound than raw whole chicken. I'm trying to make this a very easy dish - that someone with a bad cold could even manage to make for themselves, or that a helpful child could make for their sick mommy, something like that.

Um... Who is going to go to Costco for the chicken? Rather than price, maybe Instacart as a criterion?

The only other thing to note about turmeric is that it is not as well absorbed in food. It is better absorbed in a hydro-soluble supplement form for any health benefits.

Turmeric is fat soluble, not hydro-soluble. However, boiling it for a bit makes it more soluble too.. So boiling it in a soup that has some fat content is a good way to make it more accessible for the body to absorb. Eating turmeric in hot foods, particularly ones with a fat content, is a great way to get health benefits.

Curcugen is the magic stuff in turmeric, and turmeric can be and is processed in extraction to formulate a hydro-soluble supplement that can have health benefits.

John, I make a quick chicken soup using a picked rotisseri chicken, my homemade broth and some finely chopped vegetables - for quick cooking. Thyme, dill and/or parsley add a finishing touch. If there is time I actually add the bones and skin back into the broth for awhile just to punch-up the flavor.

Packaged broth, tinned corn, ? come on, you are a great cook. : ) Costco rotis can be picked of the meat, chill that separately, then make stock from the carcass. But you have an HMart. Add good meaty bones to the chicken carcass. I stopped by HM on the way home tonight. DH hit the Italian butcher. We have so many meaty bones I'll have to freeze some. Pork necks, beef bones, chicken paws...so much natural gelatin I can cut it with a butter knife.

We are making kimchi, krauts, and bone broth this weekend for the holidays...a quarter cup minced kimchi and gingered miso, rich bone stock, is all I want in my sipping broth if feeling weak. Some protein and veg solids on the way-to-recovery-days.

Might be the flu. Sounds miserable. Make the best, don't compromise.

I would not bother freezing experiments with misc veg, cabbage.. Freeze the good stuff. Good broths. Add fresh veg to a sautéed mirepoix, then good bone broth.

If you're at Costco for the rotisserie, get their organic chicken stock. Not too salty, and you can doctor it up with the other remedy flavors, although I believe it already contains turmeric.

I eat turmeric every day with a fat and black pepper to improve its absorption. A culinary dose is all that's needed.

Another suggestion, John Liu... hot toddies.

SWMBO refuses to eat any more chicken soup, no matter how tasty or medicinal. Granted, we have been living on it for a week. She also pointed out that she's dropped a half size on this liquid diet. I think she must be feeling better.

In fact, SWMBO today packed her bags and left to stay with a friend who just had a hip replacement and needs some live-in care for a (short?) while.

I don't think what I was feeding her had anything to do with her (temporarily?) departing.

I was going to work on version 3, which would have included a bottle of Chloraseptic in the broth. But we'll never know how that would have turned out.

Just wanted to add that not everyone should take tumeric. In some cases, it can cause elevated liver enzymes.

Wanted to touch back on that black chicken video. Not a translation, but got curious and dug around a bit.

The stuff added into the pot in the beginning is likely lemongrass and dried red cardamom pods. The cardamom is to help neutralize the smell of the chicken cooking rather than a flavoring agent.

The thick long greens are likely Buck Horn Plantain. I happened to find it the other day on the Seeds of Italy site and ordered up a packet since the video made me curious.

Don't know what the greens plucked from the mostly bare bushes/small trees are yet.

Was glancing at a magazine in the pharmacy today (better homes or some such) There was an article about chicken soup and colds/flu. Only had time to skim it, but besides the comfort, you're supposed to use plenty of garlic, ginger and black pepper for the medicinal aspect. (This is from a highly respected Dr.....or maybe a team of Drs!) ;)