Jamaican Chicken Soup, sometimes called Chicken & Pumpkin Soup, is my favorite dish its savory, spicy, and delicious. It contains a lot of vegetables and nutrients, as a kid growing up it was away my mom tricked me to eatery vegetables. The soup its self takes almost 45 minutes to prep and nearly an hour and 30 minus to cook. Even though the cook time is really long the flavor and taste makes up for it.
The soup self is thick and somewhat resembles a stew because of how thick it is and the amount of ingredients in it. It is best to eat during when the weather is cold and chilly. During Winter and Wall in Jamaica people most often reserve soup for Fridays or Saturdays because of how long it takes to prepare.
Below is a copy of a recipe used by cooklikeajamaican.com
What I like about the recipe is how versatile it is. Even though this recipe calls for just celery, chocho, and yellow yam to be the main vegetables of the soup, you can add more in. For example growing up my mom and grandmother would typically use Irish potatoes, yellow yam, chocho, Jamaican pumpkin, and corn cob cut into pieces. It really doesn’t matter what you put in the soup as long as you have chicken and pumpkin or butternut squash as at the backbone of the dish.
You are also not confined to just used Chicken legs you can use any part of the chicken most often people use chicken feet, chicken neckbones, or chicken legs as mentioned down below.
Its is also important that you allow the pumpkin tp boil out. This will result in your soup being thick and nice.
Ingredients
8 cups Water
4-5 medium skinless Chicken legs (thighs and drumstick)
3 cups diced Jamaican Pumpkin, or buttercup or butternut squash
2 Carrots, chopped (1-inch piece)
3 stalks Celery, chopped (1-inch pieces)
2 Chocho (chayote), peeled and sliced into 16 pieces
1 lb Yellow Yam, cut into large cubes
1/2 cup each red and green Bell Pepper, chopped
1 large Onion, chopped
1 10-oz can condensed Chicken Noodle Soup
2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1 sprig Thyme
1 Scotch Bonnet Pepper
Dumplings
1 cup flour
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
Mix together to make stiff dough. Form into 7 to 8 flat, round dumplings
Method
1. Bring water to a boil and add chicken and diced pumpkin
2. Cook (rolling boil) for 10 to 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is very soft and dissolving
3. Add celery, carrot and chocho and cook on for 10 minutes
4. Remove chicken and set aside to cool before removing the bones
5. Add yellow yam and dumplings (see recipe below) and cook/boil for 15 minutes
6. Add bell peppers, onion and chicken soup to pot
7. Add salt and pepper, and thyme
8. Place whole scotch bonnet pepper on top of soup, cover and cook (rolling boil) for 5 minutes
9. Remove scotch bonnet pepper, thyme, and if necessary remove some dumplings to make room for the chicken
10. Stir in chicken meat and turn off stove and serve.
Here is link to two of my favorite Jamaican YouTubers making it.
Jamaican Food & Culture 