Feel good chicken broth

When I was young and felt unwell with a cold or a headache, my mum would make this soup to help me feel better. It used to make me feel like a million dollars after I'd eaten it. It's probably one of the simplest soups to make because it just involves slowly boiling a whole chicken in a pot with a few roughly chopped root veg. The fat marbles on top during cooking, but underneath it is nice and clear, like a consommé. Like consommé, if you want to serve this at a dinner party or you want to vary its flavour, the actual soup will always stay the same but the garnish that you add can differ from mushrooms, to florets of cauliflower, to julienned veg. Another nice thing you can do is add a splash of sherry or port just before serving to give it a little twang. All these things are great to try, but I just really like my mum's simple chicken broth. Her secret ingredient was a rasher of smoked bacon, and sometimes she'd add a few sprigs of rosemary for the last ten minutes.