You have two delicious choices. Both require a bed of coals, so I'll start with that.
You'll need to build a fire with the logs stacked 'log cabin' style, and let the fire burn down to coals. You want a deep red coal, just starting to darken on top. The coals should look something like this.
You can bake, or bbq the chicken and asparagus. Both are delicious methods.
To bake, wrap the chicken, asparagus and a starch like potato gratin style in layers of tinfoil. Use the starch around the outside, you'll sacrifice a layer of it as some of it sticks/burns to the tinfoil. Put the most delicate item in the middle, in this case the asparagus, and the chicken around the asparagus. Add a generous amount of butter, salt and pepper and bake for about an hour buried in the coals. Corn or green beans are also very good, and can be sacrificed a little around the outside to preserve your meat and vegetables.
I would layer it this way.
1.Coals
2. Tinfoil
2. Potatoes
2. Generous dollop of butter
3. Salt & Pepper
4. Green Beans
5. Asparagus
6. Chicken
7. Potatoes
3. Tinfoil
4. Coals
Now, BBQ. You'll do it very much like a charcoal BBQ. Keep the grate close to the coals, you can generally test the heat by holding your hand above the grate, you should only be able to keep your hand there for a second or two at most.
Grill the chicken like you would on a bbq, and roast the asparagus on a cooler part of the grill. I'd marinate both before putting them on the grill. I'd also try to get an aromatic wood like hickory or mesquite, pine will impart a resinous taste.
Notice how dogs enjoy gnawing on bones? Ever been to a restaurant where they serve bone marrow?
Boiling bones in water draws flavor out of them. Most canned broth and stock you buy--beef stock, chicken stock, etc--is just this--water boiled with bones for hours.
Most literature I've read suggests using raw bones, but some recipes call for roasted bones--the ones I've seen most often involve roasted veal bones.
I've also made stock from roasted chicken bones. The stock does still take on flavor. It's easier to get good flavor from unused bones, though.
Additionally, I've found another pitfall. I've tried to make stock from the leftover bones of bbq'd ribs. This was not a good idea. The broth had a savory flavor, as intended. Unfortunately it also had the background taste of bbq sauce. Now, when I do make stocks, I'd consider using leftover bones, but
- there have to be enough bones leftover (otherwise I get very little stock for my time or it's weak on flavor)
- the bones can't be "tainted" by other flavors (like bbq sauce)
To answer your original question, try this:
- start with a pot of plain water
- put about 4 lb of bones in per gallon of water while it's still cold, add ~1 tsp of vinegar per gallon of water
- Once the water comes to a boil, lower the heat so that it's just simmering
- this keeps the stock from getting cloudy/white (which doesn't taste bad, just looks worse)
- leave boiling for about 6-8 hours, minimum. Longer is fine, but you won't get too much more at this point.
- turn off heat, allow stock to cool fully, strain it for the bones, refrigerate
- you can speed up this step by putting the pot in a sink full of cool water
- do NOT put a hot pot in your fridge. It will heat up the fridge significantly and just make the food in there go bad.
Use this to
- make soups
- make sauces (reduce it first)
- as a substitute for water in savory dish preparations (i.e. make rice with stock instead of water. Be creative here)
The main benefits here are flavor and nutrients, but I just do it for the flavor. Cutting bones up does improve the extraction process, but if the marrow is exposed already (most beef/veal bones will be) you're fine. If you save old bones, freeze them until you have enough. Don't bother trying to make stock with the bones from one chicken.
Best Answer
It is fairly atypical to cook large, bone-on pieces of chicken—including breasts—directly in soup. After all, who wants to find bones in their soup? (Making stock is another story....)
Bone on chicken breasts difficult to cook evenly, due to their shape. Some parts are thin, and will cook through rapidly, and other parts are thick and require a much longer time to cook. This makes it easy to have overcooked and undercooked areas. They are also a little unforgiving in soup if overcooked, as they tend to become tough or stringy in texture.
Normally, chicken would be pre-cooked via another method, and then cut up or shredded, and placed in the soup in the last few minutes in order to heat through for service. My favorite method of preparing chicken to use in soup or other recipes is to roast it, still skin on for flavor, but any method will do. The skin can be removed prior to adding the chicken to the soup, if you desire.
Note that this method will not add the flavor and gelatin (for that rich texture) from the bones to your soup. Instead, as cook chicken parts for other dishes, save the bones and other scraps in the freezer. When you have several pounds (a couple kilograms), you can use them to make chicken stock. Homemade chicken broth is a fantastic base for soup, and will help you achieve an excellent flavor.
If you absolutely want to cook chicken breast directly in your soup, I recommend that you de-bone it. Cut it into bite sized pieces. As one of the last finishing steps in preparing the soup, reduce the pot to a simmer rather than a full boil, and drop in the chicken pieces. This will permit the chicken pieces to poach gently in the broth. Your soup is ready for service. once they are cooked through—my guess is about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the pieces, but check them occasionally.