How to Make Chicken Noodle Soup without a Recipe

By lorik

Ingredients

• From Food 52

Details

Adapted from food52.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Take giblets et al. out of the whole chicken and put the bird in a large pot. Add water to fully submerge the chicken, along with 2 large whole carrots (scrubbed, not peeled), 3 stalks of celery (just washed), 1 quartered onion, about 5 sprigs each of fresh parsley and thyme, a bay leaf, and a teaspoon of cracked black peppercorns. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until the chicken is fall-apart tender and the stock is flavorful, about 1 hour.

Note: You can put the fresh herbs in the sachet, but I don't. Perhaps letting them float around adds more flavor? I think so.

2. Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside for a moment while you strain the stock through a fine mesh strainer (a colander lined with a clean kitchen towel works in a pinch) into a clean large bowl. Discard remaining stock solids, rinse the large pot, pour all but about two cups of stock back into the pot, and return it to the stove (not over any heat).

3. Pick all the chicken from the bones and place it into that large bowl you left with 2 cups of stock. The stock keeps the picked chicken moist while you get all the meat off the bones and prepare the soup.
Note: At this time you can separate dark and light meat into two bowls of broth, since you will be using only about half of the picked meat and can be choosy with what goes in the soup. I do this so I can get mostly dark meat in the soup (and use the white meat for chicken salad later), but it's up to you. I find the dark meat takes more kindly to reheating later on.

4. Add peeled and chopped carrots and chopped celery (both cut 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick) to the strained stock in the pot along with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper, and bring to a boil. Don't salt to taste here; just add a little to season the vegetables, as some broth will evaporate.

5. When the stock comes to a boil, taste a carrot. If it's still pretty crunchy, let the vegetables cook for another minute before adding the egg noodles. If the carrot is tender, I go in with the egg noodles right away after the stock comes to a boil. For the amount of egg noodles, I estimate 1/4 to 1/3 the volume of the stock in the pot, depending on how chock-full of noodles you like your soup.
When the noodles are al dente, add half of the picked chicken (reserving the rest for chicken salad, or whatever you like) along with the stock it steeped in, and warm through for a minute.

6. Add a handful of minced fresh parsley, lots of freshly ground black pepper, and salt to taste. Serve.