For the kitchen:
3 heads of garlic, finely chopped
3 white onions, finely chopped
4 pieces of Chorizo Bilbao El Rey, thinly sliced
300 grams Chinese ham, chopped into strips (Excellente, Majestic or Adelaida's are okay, and if you like you can also include the ham bone)
1 whole jumbo chicken
300 grams of bacon
500 gram pack of long macaroni (Royal used to have this, but if you can't find it, any brand of short macaroni will do)
5 heaping tablespoons of cheese spread (Kraft or Magnolia)
2 chicken cubes (Knorr or Maggi)
1 liter tomato sauce (Del Monte original)
1 small can tomato paste (Contadina)
Rock/sea salt and pepper to taste
Tableside:
1 can evaporated milk (I like Carnation, some other evaporada brands are too sweet for my taste)
Grated parmesan or grated Edam (traditionally Doble Ganza or Marca Pina; frankly I wasn't happy with Marca Pato)
Instructions:
Cook the macaroni per the instructions on the package and set aside.
Pressure cook the chicken with the chicken cubes (30 minutes), debone, chop into fine strips or cubes and set aside. If you would like to include ham bones, include the ham bones in the pressure cooker with the chicken so that the flavor mixes in. Don't throw the soup stock away, set this aside too.
In a large cauldron, saute the bacon with some olive oil. As the bacon starts to brown, add in the garlic and the onions. As soon as this starts to smell wonderful, add the chorizo Bilbao, and the chinese ham. In around 4-5 minutes, you can add the chicken. Stir fry for another 2 minutes in high heat. Lower the heat and add the tomato sauce and tomato paste. You can then pour in the chicken stock (which would be around 3-4 liters). Scoop in the cheese spread. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer at low heat for around 10 minutes. Add the macaroni just when you are about to serve (it is usually served piping hot, right off the stove). Usually, you add in your own milk (which brings down the liquid temperature to perfect levels) and sprinkle your own cheese. Table side evaporated milk and cheese, however, can be substituted with fresh milk, low fat milk or any kind of grated cheese if so desired.
As usual in my recipes, you can vary the proportions according to your taste, specially the amount of the chicken stock which dictates the thickness of the soup. Some people don't like it cheesy so you can also omit the cheese spread. I sometimes add an extra 300 grams of chicken liver or a couple of cans of liverwurst, but that's if you don't have a uric acid problem. Sometimes, I also pour in a 240 ml pack of Nestle all purpose cream, but that also raises the calorie count.
This basic soup can also be modified by adding any combination of herbs (e.g. parsley, basil, sage, rosemarie, thyme or cilantro), or mushrooms (e.g. button, truffles, abalone, straw, porcini, even shitake), and refrigerated leftover meats (e.g. prosciutto, jamon serrano, lamb, diced parma, jerky, salami, pepperoni, and even pastrami), but that's really up to you to experiment... As Gwammy says, "Throw it in!"
This soup usually tastes better on the second or third day, and we sometimes intentionally leave some in the ref for a couple of days. While most people want their soup hot, I've grown accustomed to cold pasta for early morning wake-up, and when served as leftover brekky, the soup is almost like gazpacho.
Lola Segunda, Tita Meng, Tito Jay and Gwammy have their own recipes, and my variations have probably been more of "hit-or-miss" versions than theirs! Well, I must admit, that there have been times that my recipe deviations were not appreciated by Michaela, Erika and Anita, but that's a different story... ;-)
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