Chicken Ginger Rice Soup

This is a cobbled together recipe using plenty of influences, including dak gomtang (Korean chicken soup) and also growing up watching my mom cook lots of delicious soups. Everything is to taste, so here's my version. This makes a huge amount of soup - I usually spoon it into jars for our lunches and it'll make 10-12 jars, easily, which is 5 or 6 meals for me and A.

Chicken Ginger Rice Soup

Serves 10-12

Ingredients

• Whole 5-lb chicken (the best one you can afford)
• A 6 inch piece of ginger root (or even more if you really like ginger)
• 1 large yellow or white onion
• 1 tbsp chicken Better than Bouillon (if using water to fill pot) or 1 carton chicken broth
• 1 bundle of green onions (usually 6-8 in a bundle, depending on the size of each green onion)
• 1 lb spinach or kale greens (or any other leafy dark green that you enjoy)
• 2 cups jasmine rice
• Fresh ground pepper to taste
• Salt to taste
• Chopped cilantro, to garnish

Method

1. Get a large soup pot that can comfortably hold your whole chicken and then some. Slice your onion into half-moons, and put in the pot. Cut off 2 inches of ginger root and bruise it with the flat edge of your knife and drop into the pot. 
2. Rinse the chicken and remove any giblets. If you like nibbling on the giblets, put them in the pot (I always do). If they make you squeamish, I guess you can discard them (sad!) Put whole chicken in the pot, breast side up. Add chicken broth if using, and then top off with enough water to cover chicken. If you're using water, fill pot to cover chicken, then add the chicken Better than Bouillon. Grind lots of fresh pepper into the pot too - whatever you think you'll enjoy.
3. Bring pot to a boil. Once it's boiling, turn down heat to a simmer and let it cook for 25 minutes. Then turn off the heat and flip the chicken so it is breast side down. Cover with lid and let it sit for 30 minutes.
4. Remove chicken from pot and put it on a plate to rest for 15 minutes. Remove the bruised chunks of ginger and discard. Once cool enough to handle, remove all of the meat from the chicken and chop into bite size pieces. If you don't like chicken skin in your soup, you can discard, but I tend to include some pieces in the soup for that lovely chicken fat richness.
5. Peel the remaining ginger and slice thinly (cross wise first, then into matchsticks). 
6. Chop green onion into small rings (I use both the white and green parts).
7. Add rice, ginger, green onion, and all of the spinach or kale greens to the chicken broth and simmer for 20-30 min. Rice should be fully cooked by the end of this time, and greens should be completely wilted. Take off heat when done.
8. Add chicken meat back into the pot and stir to fully combine. Taste and check if soup needs additional salt or pepper.
9. Serve in bowls with cilantro on top, if desired.