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.

White Bean, Pasta, and Kale Soup

After a strict holiday diet of cake pops, ham, and various foods filled or covered with some kind of melted cheese, something lighter was in order. This won't last very long ...

Notes: For leftovers, you might need to add some more water or stock; the pasta and beans start to soak up the broth.  Lastly, I didn't toast the bread because my toaster oven has a tendency to catch on fire lately, but the bread was fine un-toasted.  

White Bean, Pasta, and Kale Soup
Adapted from: Martha Stewart

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 pound kale, stems removed and cut into 1/2 inch strips
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced or smashed (with a garlic press)
1 14oz can cannellini beans
1 14oz can navy beans (or you can use 2 cans of either one of these beans)
1/8 (or a tad under 1/4) cup ditalini pasta (or other small pasta)
4 cups water
4 cups chicken stock
2 teaspoons sriracha sauce (optional, or more for added spiciness)
4 thick slices country bread
Grated parmesan cheese, toasted or un-toasted
Salt and pepper

1. In a medium-large saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

2. Add half of the beans to the pot and lightly mash with a fork (a potato masher worked well here). Add water and stock and bring to a boil. Stir in kale, remaining beans, dried pasta, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.  Reduce heat and partially cover pot; simmer until kale is tender, about 20 minutes. 

3. Stir in sriracha sauce and pour soup into bowls. Add a slice of bread to each bowl and top with grated parmesan cheese.



I have a visitor this week. Chubs has been doing his best to discreetly torment Gracie:

Spicy Curry Noodle Soup with Chicken and Sweet Potato

This was the cover recipe from a Taste of the World booklet that Bon Appetit sent me for buying my mom a gift subscription last Christmas. I've been gradually collecting the ingredients for this since then.

This recipe involves a lot of prep time, chopping and whatnot, but it's totally worth it. A note: I just realized that I used regular chili paste, not chili paste designated as "hot," so this might be why the soup didn't have as much zing/spiciness as I would have liked. I also could not find the Thai bird chiles, so I left those out, so it was perfect if you prefer mild spiciness.

I think the soup base was really great, and I want to play around with the rest of the ingredients - maybe using broccoli or another vegetable in place of the sweet potato, omitting the chicken, etc. If you're a vegetarian, you can definitely use vegetable broth and omit the chicken and still have a really good soup.

Spicy Curry Noodle Soup with Chicken and Sweet Potato
From: Bon Appetit

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons chopped shallots
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons minced lemongrass (discard tough outer leaves first)
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced and peeled
2 tablespoons Thai yellow curry paste
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon hot chili paste (such as Sambal Oelek)
2 13.5-13oz cans unsweetened coconut milk, divided
5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)
2 teaspoons sugar
3 cups snow peas, trimmed
2 cups sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 pound dried rice vermicelli noodles or rice stick noodles
3/4 pound skinless, bonless chicken thighs, thinly sliced
1/2 cup red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
3 red Thai bird chiles or 2 red jalapeño chiles, thinly sliced with seeds
1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Heat oil in a heavy large saucepan/pot over medium heat. Add the shallots, garlic, lemongrass and ginger and stir for about a minute. Reduce heat to medium low. Stir in the curry paste, curry powder, and chili paste. Add 1/2 cup of the coconut milk (scoop out the thick stuff on the top of the can) and stir until the mixture is thick, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining coconut milk, chicken broth, fish sauce, and sugar; bring the broth to a boil. (This can be done a day ahead; refrigerate in the meantime).

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the snow peas and boil for about 20 seconds. Remove from pot using a slotted spoon (or if you have one of those pots you can fit a strainer into before boiling - use that) and run the snow peas under cold water to cool. Bring the same pot of water back to a boil and add the sweet potato. Cook until tender, about 7 minutes, then remove from water with the slotted spoon or strainer. Again, bring the water back to a boil and add the noodles; cook until tender but still firm to bite, about 6 minutes. Drain in a strainer and transfer to a bowl.

3. Bring the broth to a simmer. Add the chicken and simmer until it is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

4. Add the sweet potatoes to the broth and simmer for about another minute.  Divide the noodles*,  snow peas, and hot soup among bowls. Scatter red and green onion slices, chopped cilantro, and chiles over the soup. Serve each bowl with a lime wedge.

* Unless you have enormous soup bowls, which I didn't, you will have a lot of noodles left over.  Use them for another meal!



So this is what lemongrass looks like!

And this is what the yellow curry paste looked like. Interesting. 

Thinly sliced chicken thighs: 

Broth: