We have gotten to be pretty pampered when it comes to chicken noodle soup; between canned soup, boxed stock and dried egg noodles from the pasta aisle at the store. Today I set out to do homemade chicken noodle soup the old fashioned way, use vegetables from the garden, homemade stock and even homemade egg noodles. For this recipe, I used store bought chicken, eggs, garlic and herbs – that’s all! I am not going to lie, it was some effort and quite a bit of time to do it, but the results were worth the time and effort.
Chicken Stock
5q water
3 stalks celery cut in 4 inch pieces and halved
4 carrots cut in 4 inch pieces and quartered
1 medium onion, quartered
1 green pepper seeds removed and quartered
3 sprigs flat leaf parsley
3 sprigs oregano
3 sprigs cilantro
3 sprigs rosemary
3 sprigs thyme
1 tbsp whole pepper corns
3 bay leaves
2 split chicken breasts, bone-in and skin on
I started by making the stock. My base was tap water, cut up carrots, celery, onion and green peppers from the garden. To that I added, a few sprigs each of cilantro, flat leaf parsley, rosemary, thyme, bay leaf and oregano and two split chicken breasts – bone in and skin on. Bring that to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and in 3-4 hours you will have some legit stock. Remove the chicken and set aside after about 90 minutes so that it does not get overcooked. Remove the meat from the bones and toss the bones and skin back into the stockpot while it finishes cooking down.
When the stock has a nice color to it and has a full chicken stock taste you can strain the veggies, chicken pieces and herbs from the stock. Use your finest strainer, or add cheesecloth to your strainer to get a good, clear stock and reserve for later.
Bring clean out the stock pot and put it back on medium heat and dice up an onion and three cloves of garlic. Saute all of that in 3tbsp of olive oil until the onions become translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add chopped carrots and celery and saute for another 5 minutes. Add the strained stock back into the pan and bring it back to a boil and the reduce to a simmer for 45 minutes. This would be a good time to make the noodles. Cube the chicken and add back to the simmer for 15 minutes. Cook the egg noodles and add to the bowl and top with your homemade chicken noodle soup.
Egg Noodles
2c all purpose flour
3 egg yolks
1 egg
1 tsp kosher salt
7tbsp water
Add flour and salt to a large mixing bowl and form a well in the middle.
Add egg, and egg yolks to well and use a fork to mix the combine the egg and yolks together.
Once the eggs and yolks are mixed, start mixing the flour into the eggs a little bit at a time until the egg is evenly incorporated into the flour.
Once it is incorporated, add 2tbsp water to the dough and start pressing the dough together with your hands. Slowly add water until there is no loose flour left and the dough is smooth without being sticky. If your dough is sticky, dust with flour and knead dough until smooth. Once the consistency is right, fold the dough over onto itself and press down. Do this for 3-5 minutes.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and set aside for 15-20 minutes.
Cut the dough into four pieces and work them through the stages on a pasta roller all the way to the smallest setting. I use a Fante’s Great Aunt Gina’s pasta machine, it wasn’t very expensive and works great. If you do not have a pasta roller you can use a rolling pin. It is more work, but it can be done.
Lay the dough on a flat floured surface and use a pizza cutter to cut into 1/4″ (or however wide you want them) strips and hang to dry. I recommend a pasta dryer like this one for that job.
The noodles will be ready when they are brittle to touch and can be broken apart.
Boil noodles in aggressively salted water for just a couple of minutes, they’ll float when ready.
Add noodles to your soup bowls and then add soup over top of them. You could cook the noodles in the soup, but they are so light and delicate that they will fall apart of you had to store them in the soup. Store the noodles separately and combine as needed.
Just because something takes a bit of time, doesn’t mean that it is difficult. Trust me on this one, the results are great!
