Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I've been slacking on the blogging, but now that I've finally finished all of the released books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series (nerd alert), I don't have much of an excuse to keep slacking. Except I just went and started Downton Abbey, and now I'm done for.

Moving onward... this is a very basic chicken noodle soup recipe. If you don't want to make homemade noodles, you can use as many egg noodles as you want for the soup.  There's also a lot of room to add other stuff that you might like to put in a soup.  

The whole chicken I used for the stock was a "soup chicken" from the farmer's market. Soup chickens are older and no longer laying eggs. I found the soup chicken to be really tough, so it didn't yield much in the way of extra chicken meat for the soup. I may have needed to cook it longer.  I'll use a regular roasting chicken or whatnot next time.

Makes about 8 servings.

Chicken Noodle Soup
Adapted from: Epicurious

Ingredients

1 pound chicken parts (I used thighs/legs)
2 stalks celery, cut into 3 inch pieces
1 whole chicken (about 3 pounds), rinsed
1 large whole onion, unpeeled
4 large carrots, peeled
1 medium whole parsnip, peeled
2 leeks, white and light green parts only
Homemade noodles, or egg noodles
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 bunch dill, tied together

1.  Pour 14 cups of water into a large stockpot.  Add chicken parts and celery and bring to a boil.  Meanwhile, rub the inside of the whole chicken with salt.

2. Add the whole chicken to the pot and, if need be, add extra water so that the whole chicken is entirely submerged in water.  Cover pot, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.  Test the chicken with a fork to make sure that it's fully cooked. When it is, remove from pot and set aside. Leave chicken pieces in pot.

3.  Add carrots, onion, turnip, leeks, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. Let soup simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Use a mesh strainer to skim the surface of the soup and remove any bits of goop that have floated to the top of the soup.    

4. When the chicken cools, remove skin and shred meat into bite-sized pieces. Add the chicken to the soup (or you can make it into chicken salad, but the soup is better with more chicken).

5. Strain the soup and discard anything solid except for the carrots and the chicken pieces.  Shred chicken pieces into the soup. 

6. Two minutes before serving, add dill to the soup and then remove. Add salt and pepper to taste and slice carrots into the soup.  Add noodles to each bowl of soup before serving. 


The stuff. Chicken legs/thighs from Raghoo Farms in Fort Plain, NY, and soup chicken from Arcadian Pastures in Sloansville, NY.  Good stuff.

Barley with Cucumber and Yogurt-Dill Dressing

I like Mark Bittman's simple dishes, but this one didn't do it for me. I may have liked it better as a side dish, with fish or chicken or something, but I didn't love it by itself.  The yogurt kind of ruined it for me, but that is my own issue; you might like it! It was definitely refreshing, but in the future I might substitute more olive oil for the yogurt.


Barley with Cucumber and Yogurt-Dill Dressing
From: Mark Bittman

Ingredients

1 cup pearled barley
1 English cucumber, 6 Kirby (pickling) cucumbers or 2-3 medium/regular cucumbers
3-4 scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup yogurt
1/2 cup fresh dill
Salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a saucepan, cover the barley with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil.  Cook for about 20 minutes, until the barley is tender. Drain and let cool, or rinse with cold water.

2. Peel and cut the cucumbers into bite sized pieces. (Bittman says to remove any seeds, but it was fine with seeds).

3. Make the dressing: whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, and yogurt. Toss the dressing together with barley, cucumbers, and scallions.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Chicken with Tomato-Dill Relish

Meghan made this Bon Appetit recipe last year and it was so good that I'd been thinking about it ever since. Epicurious calls it "dill chicken paillards with tomato-dill relish" ... apparently paillards are any kind of meat that is pounded thinly (or if you're a cheater like I am, bought thin) and cooked quickly.

I went home this past week to my parents' house on Long Island and decided to take advantage of their grill! Despite the awesomeness of having a grill to make this chicken on, I made it again last night on the stove and it was still pretty darn good. It felt so healthy that I had to immediately go out and eat some ice cream afterward. Van Leeuwen in Greenpoint has a mean pistachio ice cream, by the way.

My dad thought the chicken sauce was a little too mustardy, but everyone else seemed to like it as is. If you don't love mustard, you could always cut it down a bit. We didn't have any grainy mustard at home, but the smooth Dijon mustard worked fine as well.

The measurements for the sauce in the original recipe are a little skimpy, so I tripled it when making this for me and both my parents, and doubled it last night when making it for 2 people total. However, I did not triple/double the amount of cherry tomatoes, because then you'd just have an insane tomato frenzy going on.

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless, and thinly sliced chicken breasts (or you can pound regular chicken breasts to 1/4 inch thick)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chopped dill
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
1 tablespoon grainy mustard
1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered

1. Whisk together oil, dill, shallot, mustard, and vinegar in a large bowl. Set aside 1/4 cup for the topping (use the rest to coat the uncooked chicken). Sprinkle chicken evenly with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, then add to dill mixture, turning to coat.

2. Toss tomatoes with reserved dill mixture and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

3. Grill chicken, turning once, until just cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes total. Serve topped with relish.

This chicken goes great with brown rice or mashed potatoes and roasted veggies or corn on the cob!

Tomato-dill relish:

This was my first time grilling. I think I'll need to leave NYC one day for the sole reason of being able to grill in a backyard:

Tip: Keep your eyes on the chicken. This is Gracie trying to sabotage our dinner! It almost worked.