I was supposed to segue into baked chicken and veg stews for spring and was planning in fact to overhaul my vegetable stew collection, but all of a sudden found myself making chicken stews, more or less real chicken stews, by which I mean not slow chicken stews in the crockpot.
This works, though, because now I sit up front at the reception desk at work and I like to eat at my desk, which my bosses are very nice about. So I think I can be nice back by nicely eating my bite-size pieces of chicken with a spoon, so I'm not receiving visitors gnawing the meat off a thigh bone.
Carrots come frozen, but I think their texture is weird so only eat frozen carrots pureed. So I actually am using fresh carrots for this, but still frozen peas.
an onion
two stalks celery
4-5 chicken thighs
2 cups water
olive oil or butter
1 lb carrots
1/2 lb frozen peas
1 Tbsp flour
1 tsp dried thyme
Peel and chop the onion, and trim and chop the celery including the leaves if they look nice. Put the onion, celery, chicken, and water in a soup pot and bring to a strong simmer over high heat. Then turn the heat to low and let simmer partially covered for an hour.
Scrub, trim, and slice the carrots.
Remove the chicken to a cutting board and set aside, and—I'm super proud of this part, I thought of it myself—puree the remaining broth and vegetables with an immersion blender until smooth. Pour the pureed broth into a prep bowl and set aside.
Heat olive oil or butter in the soup pot over high heat and saute the carrots for about 10 minutes until crisp-tender. Stir in the flour and thyme and cook for a couple minutes, then add the pureed broth back to the pot. Stir until the broth starts to thicken and simmer, then add the peas. Simmer for ten minutes until carrots and peas are tender.
Separate the chicken meat from the skin and bone, and cut the meat into bite-size pieces.
Add the chicken meat back to the stew and simmer a few more minutes until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
