After cooking for 2-1/2 hours, I pulled out the chicken from the stockpot. It was nicely cooked, not tough. Everything at this point needs to be removed from the bone. All skin and cartilage goes back in to the pot, along with the bones. All meat is set off to the side in a bowl.

In with the chicken parts goes 1tbsp vinegar (I was out of white vinegar, so apple cider vinegar is an adequate replacement), an onion, quartered, 3 cloves of garlic, split, 2 bay leaves (mine were old, so I added a second), and for good measure I threw in a small handful of peppercorns.

When I woke up this morning, and I could smell the richness of a good stock in the air.

Checking the contents of my Instant Pot while the water for my coffee was boiling, they had rendered down nicely. With a slotted spoon, I extracted the solids. With my strainer on a second pot, I ran the liquid through to remove anything left.

For whatever reason, I was in an odd Kate Bush mood this morning. Not my usual cooking soundtrack, but sometimes you just have to flow with it.

Now to process our vegetables. The tools: the trusty Cuisinart, chef knife, forks.

Carrots are shred, radishes are sliced, celery is split longways and chopped, onion is julienned, turnip is cubed, chicken is shredded. Creates a lot of texture and variety. I would have added mushrooms, but I generally prefer dried shiitake and would have had to run into the city to acquire.

I started the shredding the breast meat with forks, but in the end threw all of the loose and dark meat into the food processor and pulsed until shred, pulling out the tendons as I went.

Once everything is processed, it all goes in the pot. Lastly, we add our lentils and spices. I was going to use 4 cups of red lentils, but I had 5 and decided to use them all. For spices, a good helping of thyme, a bit of coriander, a splash of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste.

Now, bring to pressure and boil, then immediately kill the cooking and switch to simmer for 2 hours. Before serving, chop and add a bunch of parsley.

And that’s soup. It will either turn out to be well-balanced, or too many lentils will suck out all the liquid. Either way I am expecting it to be delicious.

How did it turn out you may ask? Lentils were just slightly overcooked, but the broth is rich, the roots are all soft, and the chicken is perfect. Aromatic, rich, and savory - pretty good as you can imagine. I probably made more than I can eat in a week, for real though. I now have 3 giant bowls in my refrigerator and a ziplock bag in my freezer.

Now I have an hour to design an operations’ portal. The work of the mad scientist is never done.