Whole Chicken and vegetable soup

Ingredients
2 Tbsp butter
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 brown onion, diced
2 leeks, halved and sliced into 1cm pieces
2 Tbsp flour
1 cup tomato passata
1 whole chicken, around 1.6kg
2 bay leaves
a small handful of parsley
2 tsp salt
1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
Serves 6

Method
Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Fry the carrots, celery, brown onion and leeks for around five minutes, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are fragrant. Add the flour and stir to combine.

Add tomato passata, stir then place the whole chicken with enough water to just cover the chicken. Tie the bay leaves and parsley together into a bouquet garni and add to the pot. Add the salt and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and continue to cook at a rolling boil (not a simmer) for 40 minutes.

Add the potato and continue to cook for a further 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, adjust the seasoning and allow to stand 10 mins. Shred the chicken, remove the bones and return the meat to the soup.

Chooks note:  You can play around with the vegetable combo depends on what you have in the crisper or garden.  I save the chicken carcass and cook it for a further few hours, with half onion and whatever veggie ends I have in the freezer, with 1 L or more of water. Makes a fine chicken stock.  
Tomato passata – if you are making a tomato sauce and remove the seeds from the tomatoes, freeze them and this serves as well as a passata.