Let's talk more about this soup. As I'm talking about this soup, and you're listening about this soup, I'm wondering if there is any way possible for me to convey to you how mind-blowingly good it was. I've been making homemade chicken noodle soup for years, but this one? Extraordinary (I knew it when the sick boy went for his third bowlful). And I think I know why: the stock.
Homemade stock.
Hang on, let's not lose each other over this. You may be thinking, as I did for so long, that making stock is interesting, for sure, but not realistic, because when do you have all the aromatics, the fresh herbs, the chicken etc., etc., at the same time, plus hours to simmer it all down into something that will then be strained, have more ingredients added, and be simmered some more? Does the word daunting come to mind? Right.
But then, I read what Ms. Smitten Kitchen wrote about homemade stock, and her light bulb moment, via the current coming from Cook's Illustrated, became my lightbulb moment, and the world was suddenly a much brighter place.
People? You only need five ingredients to make amazing homemade stock: chicken bones, onion, a clove of garlic, salt and water. And, if you're like me and have only three of those ingredients (chicken bones, onion, and water) you're set for stock. And - this is the best part - you let it make itself in the crockpot overnight.
Let's all applaud.
Go ahead and read the full post over at Smitten Kitchen - Deb's got detail you'll want to know, plus her writing alone is worth leaving here and going there for. Then, I'll fill you in on how it's done in my little kitchen.
First off, I don't use all chicken wings for my stock. In an effort toward thrift and efficiency, I use the bones from the locally grown, free-range, organic whole chickens I've got in my freezer (I order about 50 per year from a local farmer). Every time I roast a chicken, I save the backbones, which I've removed from the fresh chicken, in a freezer bag, adding to the bag each time I cut a backbone out. When the bag is full, or I need to make stock, I'll thaw and roast the backbones, wholeheartedly following the wisdom that says roasting bones prior to making stock with them provides a more nutritious and tasty stock. I also keep all the bones and carcasses from roasted chickens after the meat has been removed, and add these to the backbones in the stockpot (or save them to a separate bag in the freezer).
I then fall in step with Deb and put roasted bones, water, onion, garlic (sometimes), and salt (sometimes) in the crockpot, then I let it cook for up to 24 hours (thanks, Wellness Mama). Or, I do a variation of this - a long simmer on the back of the stove for the afternoon and evening, then into a low oven till morning.
I let the stock cool, remove and discard the bones, then strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve. I don't skim off any fat, because my chickens don't actually produce much fat compared to factory chickens, and what fat they do offer, I definitely want to keep. I use the rich, flavorful stock in a soup right away, or I put it in jars and freeze.
There, now you've got the inside scoop on the soup of the soup (the soup scoop?). But, what about the noodles? Delicious chicken noodle soup is as much about the noodles as it is about the broth, so I would be remiss if I didn't share about those dumpling-esque noddles you see bobbing languidly among the carrots and herbs in the steamy chicken stock.
Those are nothing but a sleepy mama's take on the form of a traditional egg noodle - instead of rolling out the dough and cutting it into noodles, I've taken to simply tearing off thumb-size chunks of dough and tossing them into the bubbling soup to cook. The dough disappears beneath the surface for an moment, then rises to the top as perfect little dumplings. I always use my grandma's egg noodle recipe for this, which reminds me every time I read it how important simplicity is:
Egg Noodles
1 cup flour
1 egg
Water in eggshell
Salt
There aren't even any instructions to follow. Probably because that wasn't necessary - simply put those ingredients in a bowl and mix them together (for your sakes, I will say that I usually use about 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of salt per cup of flour).
The broth takes hours, but the noodles mere minutes, so just remember to put them in the pot last, with everything else already there, happily cooked and waiting over a strong simmer. The soup will be ready to ladle into bowls in about five minutes.
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