This chicken soup is as soothing to cook as it is to eat

Since the publication of the first “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book in 1993, more than 275 titles of the series have come out. Worldwide, more than 500 million copies have sold in over 100 countries, speaking as much to the desire for feel-good stories as to the universal understanding that chicken soup soothes, body and soul.
While some studies have suggested that chicken soup may help cure colds, there’s no definitive medical benefit. But don’t we all agree that it helps us feel better when our noses are stuffed, our heads hazy, our hearts heavy? And I believe that the process of cooking it from scratch can also lift spirits, however low or high. After decades of trying endless variations on chicken soup, I’ve landed on this bowl, naturally sweet from carrots and napa cabbage, rich with chicken and hearty with pearled barley.
I grew up drinking home-style Cantonese soups, returning from school to the warm fog of simmering vegetables and bony meat in the kitchen. All afternoon, the pot would bubble slowly and by the time we sat down to dinner, the broth glowed gold. The carrots were simmered until fuzzy at the edges, the spent chicken dry and shreddy as twine, fit only for the cats. I loved the crystalline broth, with the subtle yet pure taste of its ingredients, but for dinner now, I want the soup to be a meal in itself.
In refashioning my childhood dish, I’ve applied lessons learned from cooking a world of chicken soups. The biggest is this: You can simmer a huge pot for hours and hours to distill the ingredients’ flavors, or you can keep the proportion of water to chicken and vegetables low and cook them just until they’re tender. The broth will end up deeply flavorful, but the chicken will stay juicy enough to eat.
Drumsticks are the ideal cut because of all the collagen in the bones’ joints, which makes the broth satiny. The meat that comes off in generous slips has a nice balance of chew and tenderness. For an even richer soup, you can add chicken wings, backs or feet. (I enjoy eating the meat and cartilage off those parts, but if you don’t, you can discard them.)
In preparing a from-scratch chicken soup, the ingredients should be added in the order in which they cook through. They also need to be cut in shapes and sizes that will stay intact and fit in a spoon. Here, onion is diced, carrots are cut into jewels and napa cabbage is sliced into short, fat ribbons. Barley goes in last because it softens relatively quickly and its starches can cloud the broth over time.
Preparing the soup is as soothing as slurping it. According to Zoey Xinyi Gong, the author of “The Five Elements Cookbook: A Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine With Recipes for Everyday Healing,” chicken soup is “generally good for everyone,” and the act of cooking “can give our mind peace, more focus.”
“It’s restorative and meditative,” she said. “The added benefit of this is huge.” So, too, is the way the steaming pot can help clear sinuses.
As I tested this soup again and again, I found that the ideal method shared the steady beat of a relaxing walk. Instead of dumping everything into a pot and letting it go, you start by simply bringing (not too much) water to a boil. While you’re waiting for the first gurgles, you slice the ginger, onion and carrot. If you’re not done before the water boils, that’s OK. The ginger and chicken go in first anyway. You can finish those vegetables and move on to the cabbage as a raft of foam from the boiling meat rises. Spooning off that foam is as satisfying as taking deep breaths midstroll.
So satisfying, in fact, that you can stay there by the soup, skimming between ingredient additions. There isn’t much to do as everything cooks, and it’s a great excuse to do nothing else. As the steam rises and clears your head, you can keep breathing it in, anticipating the gratitude of the soup’s recipients or just feeling grateful you can make it for yourself. Even before it warms your body, it can start to soothe your soul. — The New York Times