Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

About a week ago, a hex hit my house.  As in, my nearly 2 year old daughter and my husband both came down with a bug that knocked them out of commission for nearly a week.  Somehow, miraculously, I was unscathed.  I think it was so that someone other than the dogs could keep them alive.  I don't think Maddy or Jazzy could cook food, go get gatorade, spoon mylanta, or attend to the myriad of other things that were going on in the house...so lucky me.  I did make a huge portion of Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup, complete with homemade egg noodles to sustain my poor, sick babies...and it lasted a good week.  I just poured out the remaining 2-ish cups of it last night.

This recipe is fairly easy, just requires that you taste your stock to ensure it has enough flavor for you, and add to it as you see fit for your taste.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Here's what I used:

1 5 lb whole chicken fryer
1 bag baby carrots (or 4-5 peeled/chopped large carrots)
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
4 sprigs fresh oregano, leaves only
S&P
Chicken Bullion

Egg Noodles (recipe below or store bought)

Here's what I did:

Preparation for this recipe consists of chopping all vegetables, and feel free to add veggies that you like to this, and omit what you don't.  Also, rinse and pat dry the chicken, discarding innards.  At this point, I cut the chicken into 4 main pieces, breasts, and thigh/legs.  Alternately, you can buy a chicken already cut up, to save on time.

Then, in a large stockpot, place chicken and all vegetables.  Add cold water, until chicken pieces are fully covered.  Allow chicken and vegetables to boil on med/high for about 20-25 minutes.  Remove chicken at this point, and take off and discard skin and bone.  Chop chicken into bite-size pieces, and add back into stockpot.  Set eat to a low simmer.

At this point, take a taste of the stock.  Its probably pretty bland.  Add salt, pepper and chicken bullion cubes or powder until you reach desired flavor profile.  Add cajun seasoning if you want a little more kick.

Homemade Egg Noodles

Here's what I used:

2 cups AP Flour
3 large eggs, beaten

Here's what I did:

I used my Kitchen Aid mixer, and simply added the flour and eggs to the bowl, and used paddle attachment for 30 seconds.  I did not need to add any extra water or flour to get the right consistency.  Test dough with finger, if its too sticky/gooey, add flour by the tbsp until dough is tacky, but not gooey.  If its in small balls, add water by the tsp until dough begins to bind together.

Remove dough from mixer, and hand knead into a ball.  Wrap with saran wrap and let sit for 15 minutes to 2 hours (as time permits).  You can make dough ahead of time, and then begin the soup.  That way, as soup boils, you can be forming your noodles. 

At this point, I again used my Kitchen Aid mixer, and added pasta roller attachment to the front.  Divide dough into 6 even sections, and keep unused sections covered by saran wrap or dish towel until ready to use.  Generously flour the dough, and feed it through the roller, starting at the widest section, #1, and continuing twice per setting until #4.  Continue this for all sections of dough, laying flattened pieces down on a floured surface, and covering with a dish towel.

Once all sections have been flattened, I added my linguine pasta cutter attachment.  Feed each section of dough through the pasta cutter, and then hang the pasta groups to dry.  I have a pasta drying rack, but you can also drape the noodles over the side of a large mixing bowl until ready to add to the soup.

Now, by this point, the soup should be ready for the noodles.  I simply took each section of fresh noodles, and with kitchen shears, cut the noodles over the stockpot, and let them fall into the soup below.  I made each set of noodles about 2" long.  I did this with all groups of noodles, and then let simmer for 5 minutes.

Test your noodles to ensure they're fully cooked.  If you opt to make them by hand, make sure the dough is rolled out very thin, and then hand cut with a butter knife.  These may take longer to cook, as they will probably be thicker.

Again, check seasoning and adjust to your liking.

Sydney was requesting "nooo-ols" for days afterwards.  This keeps and microwaves beautifully, so it provided us with 4-5 days of soup for both Nick and Sydney.

Basic Handmade Pasta

That's right. I took the plunge and made handmade pasta last night. My right arm/wrist/hand have recovered pretty well by now, and I think Nick and I agree that it was worth the effort. It was fun!! I did watch a YouTube video on how to roll out the dough for cutting into strips (ala linguine), and it has to be super thin for the noodles to not resemble/taste/texture of spaetzle (which I remember making in 9th grade Home Ec). But I have to say it was fun to be able to make the pasta myself...would I do it every day?! No. Did I enjoy it? Yes. The results were worth it. And now I can't wait to try to make my own ravioli!!

I used a Mario Batali "Basic Pasta Dough" recipe:

3 1/2 cups unbleached All Purpose flour
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Here's what I did:

On a large cutting board or wide, clean, flat surface, I made a mountain with the flour. Then with my fingers, I created a bowl or crater in the center. I cracked the eggs into the space I created, making room as needed for the eggs and olive oil. Then, with a fork, I began to gently stir and beat the eggs, slowly folding and sprinkling in the flour as I went. I will warn that I took a very long time to incorporate the flour...maybe 10 minutes? Because if you go too fast you risk incorporating too much flour, and having less successful dough. Once the eggs and flour started to come together, and pull away from the flour "mountain" that now resembled more of an outline...I began to fold it over and into itself with the fork.

At this point, I tested with my finger, and the dough readily stuck to it, so I continued to add flour. The dough needs to be sticky but not stick and glop to your hand or the surface you're working on. Once the dough was well incorporated, I transferred it to a NEW, clean, flour dusted cutting board and began to knead. I kneaded the dough for 6 minutes, then wrapped it tightly in saran wrap, and then let it rest Unrefrigerated for 30 minutes. Kneading consists of continually folding the dough on itself, and the pushing it back out into a larger ball with the heels of your hands.

Once the dough had rested, I cleaned a very large area of my countertop and dusted with flour. I had just finished watching this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/user/spotandLucy#p/u/12/85xeHTyHEZM and tried to replicate with my much smaller rolling pin. Then I took a pizza cutter, and tried to cut very thin noodles out of the dough, similar to a common linguine. I was not shy about flour, either. Every chance I got, I continued to rotate the dough 1/4 turn and dust underneath so that my sheet of dough didn't stick to the counter.

I don't have a pasta drying rack, but the recipe suggests to allow the noodles to "dry" for another 30 minutes before boiling/cooking. I used a large mixing bowl, and laid my noodles over the side, and across the bowl as I found space. I allowed them to rest for 15 minutes, as my water was boiling, and Nick's chicken had already come out of the oven!

Once my water was at a rolling boil, a touch of olive oil was added to the water, to help prevent sticking. I added a "Test" noodle to see if the noodle would hold up. It did. So I went ahead and added the rest of my noodles and allowed them to cook for 3-5 minutes. The recipe suggests 3 minutes, but at 3 minutes my pasta was still a little chewy, so I left it in a little longer. I think maybe the pot was a little small for the amount of pasta, and my noodles were not perfectly cut, so some where thicker - and all in all the whole batch took longer to cook.

Once the noodles were cooked to the right tenderness that I wanted, I drained them and then plated alongside Nick's balsamic glazed chicken. I opted to just use the juice/glaze and caramelized onions from his recipe (another Batali recipe from the same book), and it was very good.

What would I change next time? I think I need a way to make my noodles more uniform in size. I also need a way to allow the noodles to dry better. I need to brainstorm some household items that I might be able to rig into pasta dry racks...