Use Your Noodle!

We had a bit of an emergency here last night.

My friend was sick!

My dear friend who coaches soccer, runs our church's mid-week program, is on several boards, has five children, etc. etc., you know the one who's husband is going away for the weekend.

. . . no wonder she's sick!

She was on her way home from a 730 mile trip to drop a kiddo off at college when she came down with a BAD cold.

I couldn't let her come home to laundry, cleaning, and cooking! I couldn't.

So I made her soup. I made her chicken soup. This chicken soup. Soup is healing! Soup would feed her family! But I had no noodles.

What to do? Rice? Rice is good when you're sick. So while I was using my "noodle" to think about what to put in her soup it dawned on me!

I could make noodles!

So I made her my grandma's noodles!

Do you like homemade egg noodles? Texturally they're very different from your average store bought noodle. Homemade noodles are bumpy rather than smooth. Broth and gravies cling to them. They're thicker and chewier too. Substantial is the key word here.

Homemade noodles are substantial. Do German grandmas make anything that isn't substantial?

So let's make some noodles!

Have you seen people make noodles with the pile of flour and the egg in the middle? Sure it's fun and all but as you can see I ended up with a leak! There are good reasons why they make them this way but I'm going to make you Grandma Neigel's noodles. Grandma Neigel used a bowl. Or at least my mother used a bowl when she made her mother's noodles.

So here's how you do it!

Crack a whole egg into the bowl. See, we're already starting off all backwards! Add half a teaspoon of salt.

Half a teaspoon of salt!?

Grandma's noodles don't need to be boiled in heavily salted water! In fact Grandma made her noodles with a whole teaspoon of salt. I'm being gentle with you! I suspect their soups didn't start off with a lot of salt in the broth. Anyway, these puppies have got the flavor in them already. Which is good since we're going to cook 'em fresh.

Now for a tablespoon of water.

Mix it up with a fork. The smoother you can get it the better.

Now for a cup of plain old all purpose flour!

Mix it up! You may notice it looks really, really, dry.

Until your squeeze it. Then you realize its a little sticky.

Go ahead and smoosh it around until you've picked up all the scrappy pieces on the bottom.

Knead it until it forms a ball about the size of a lemon. Now mine wasn't totally smooth or anything but that is what resting is for!

Throw it in some plastic and let it sit. At least 10 minutes. The longer you let it sit the happier it'll be. The easier it'll roll out. My mother would of thrown it in the fridge at this point. Grandma . . . not so much. It does have a raw egg in it so its not "safe" to leave it out technically. But I don't worry because I'm going to throw it in boiling water and cook it throughly.

Now with all doughs and pastries there are some issues that might come up. Because of humidity, temperature, flour storage, and chicken differences a cup of flour and an egg aren't always the same size. So it's possible you might end up with dough that's a little wet or a little dry.

If it's a little wet . . .

Don't worry! As long as you can get it into a ball shape just put it in the bag and let it rest. It'll soak up as much flour as it needs when you're rolling it out.

If it's a little dry . . .

No matter how much I smooshed I was leaving quite a bit in the bowl.

Add a few drops of water to the bottom and knead, knead again! I think I added half a teaspoon of water to this batch.

After your dough has rested, throw a little flour on a nice flat surface.

Oh and if your cat happens to like that sunny, dry surface make sure you wash it first.

Pat it out into a little disk. A little on this side.

Flip and pat it out again. Keep everything nice and dusty. Dusty with flour! I'm good with dusty. It's my natural state.

Treat your dough gently, like you would a baby! Okay, if you've ever changed a baby you know you have to use a little "force" but you don't dig your fingers in!

Put a little flour on your rolling pin so it doesn't stick. You're going to roll out the dough nice and thin. I flip my dough over quite often, like six times or so. I flour everything again each time. You want to keep it movable!

See? I almost have it thin enough. The thinner you get your noodles the tenderer they'll be. I'm getting ready to flip this again. See the flour I sprinkled on it?

That's how thin you want it!

Now if you've ever made pie crust before you're probably getting nervous. Don't be nervous! There's very little fat in this dough. Its not delicate at all!

Let's cut some noodles!

I'm going to try my pizza cutter! I usually use a chef's knife. My mother used scissors quite often. Whatever you're using throw a little flour on it.

Look! It's easy as pie! (Actually easier than pie!)

Your noodles can be any shape you want! Big or little! After eating my soup tonight I decided I wished I had cut them more spoon sized.

Now at this point you have some choices.

If I didn't have him I could just leave the noodles right where they were until I was ready to dump them in the pot of soup!

So I toss a little flour on . . .

I peel them off the table. Well it's more of a flip . . . Use a spatula if you like.

Then I throw them on a paper plate. I throw the whole plate in the freezer. Uncovered. If I was going to wait a week to use them I'd throw them in a big plastic bag (still on the plate) after they froze. I like that it dries them out a little.

My mother said they used to hang the noodles from the back of chairs and over broom sticks until they dried. Then they'd store them in the pantry. Can you imagine me trying to do that in my house? The cat would be snacking. The kids would be flinging. Darling husband would be dusting. Bedlam! Chaos!

To cook them put them in boiling broth or water for 2+ minutes. Here's the deal. After two minutes of boiling they're safe but they're really stiff and super chewy. I like them that way! But if you boil them a little longer they'll start to get tender and a little more child friendly.

Here's the link to my chicken soup.  I added 4 big coins of ginger to my friend's soup because ginger is good for colds! I used two recipes to make the soup nice and noodly. Is that a word?

Get well my friend!

Grandma Neigel's Noodles

1 large egg
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp water
1 cup all purpose flour

Mix egg, salt, and water together in a medium sized bowl. Add flour and stir in. Knead until a ball is formed. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 10 minutes or several hours. Roll out on well floured surface. Cut into desired shape. Cook in boiling liquid for at least two minutes.

**This is a great recipe to try with kids. If your kids are ones to put fingers in their mouths you can go ahead and used pasteurized egg product from the dairy aisle. They get to roll and shape and cut but you don't end up with cookies you end up with supper!

Chicken Soup: a primer

Tis the season for chicken soup! Baby it's cold outside and a nice warm bowl of soup is just what a person craves. Of course in my neck of the woods it seems like everybody is staying home with sick kiddos. Since you've got to take the time off why not make them something healing? Besides, chicken leg quarter sections were on sale . . . we'll discuss my food hoarding tendencies later.

To make a plain jane style soup you'll need the following items

Of course you can make a passable chicken soup with just chicken, water, and salt but this is AMERICA and we have different standards for our soup. Start off with a nice large pot and . . .

stick the chicken in! I'm using three whole chicken leg quarters. I pick leg quarters because they're full of dark meat, bone, and connective tissue. The trinity of stock making! Cover them with some . . .

nice cold tap water.  I like to add a couple teaspoons of salt at this point.  I want my chicken meat to be well seasoned you see.  It makes it taste "chickenier." Now for some more flavors! I like to create some balance in my food and that means it needs to hit all the spots on our tongue.  We can taste sour, sweet, bitter, salty and umami(meatiness). So far we've only covered salt and umami. Who will rescue us? Where are our sour, bitter and sweet?  To whom shall we turn? . . .

Our "sour" player today is some nice dry vermouth! Sure you could use plain old white wine but so many of the cheaper whites are sweet and cheap sweet wine has this tendency to turn a little funky in food. No funkiness allowed in chicken soup! Dry vermouth is actually nice and "dry"--no sweetness here, and it has a herbal quality of its own. The price can't be beat either!  Bonus, if you have it on hand you're always ready to produce martinis! I just love multifunctional liquor, don't you? But what about our other tastes? What about bitter? Do we really need bitter? YES! Our bitter will be a tag team production today . . .

Here's the "aromatics" to our rescue. Celery, parsley, and onion.  I wash them up and cut them up just enough to fit nicely in the pot. I want them to be easy to fish out of the broth afterward.  I leave the skin on the onion because I'm lazy. Why take unnecessary steps? Besides that nice onion skin will naturally add to the beautiful yellow color of the broth! The second half of the "bitter" team . . .

Da HERBS! Well technically the garlic is an aromatic but it fits so nicely on the plate with the herbs! I've got some dried thyme, a lovely bay leaf, salt and pepper, and some garlic.  Now I wanted to just have the lovely rounding of flavor a little garlic adds without a pronounced garlic flavor.  So I took a head of garlic that I had used all of the really nice large cloves off of and just washed it up and sliced it in half.  I think most people wouldn't of even been able to identify garlic as an ingredient but they'd miss it if it wasn't there! Besides, garlic is good for you and this is supposed to be a nice healing soup.  A few ginger root coins would be lovely at this point too but I just wasn't in the mood today.  Now everybody into the pool . . .

Check your water level, we don't want anybody left out of the broth! Turn the heat up high and bring it all to a boil. Then turn it down to a simmer and cook it for an hour if you're in a hurry, 2 hours if you're feeling lazy. Did I mention you could put all of these things in a crockpot at night and cook it on low while you sleep?

While the stock is simmering go ahead and prep your vegetables you want to eat in the soup.  We stuck with the classic carrots and peas. About a cup of peas and 2 cups of carrots. These will add that "sweetness" we're looking for to make the soup a delicious taste treat! When your broth is done simmering. It's time to get to work!

You need to get everything you put into the broth, out of the broth now . . .

Get those old aromatics out too. They're cooked to death by this point and sort of limp and unvegetably! They may go to their rest now knowing they fought the good fight . . .

Take the chicken meat off the bone and discard the bones, skin and any of those other unidentifiable lumps of "stuff." Cut the goodness into bite size pieces that'll fit your spoon nicely. Now to make your soup . . .

If your broth looks a little oily, go ahead and ladle the fatty parts off, a fat separator works really well for this if you've got one. You could also stop cooking at this point, throw the broth in the fridge over night and just peel off that fat before you make soup. The options are limitless!

Bring the broth to a boil and add the carrots. You want to cook them for about 5 minutes. They won't be "done" yet but that's okay, you still have noodles to cook!

Add your yummy noodles and cook them for about 3-5 minutes . . .

Add your peas and chicken and bring it to a simmer again.  Check the salt level, add some if it needs it. You're ready to serve!

Soup! It's what's for dinner!!!  I often like to add a couple slices of ginger root to this soup just for kicks! My German relatives from South Dakota garnish their soup with cinnamon! President George Washington actually enjoyed a little peanut butter stirred into his soup!  Go crazy with it!

Chicken Noodle soup

3 chicken leg quarters

1 tablespoon salt

water

1/4 cup dry vermouth

1 yellow onion, sliced in half

4 stalks of celery

4-5 small cloves garlic

8-12 stalks flatleaf parsley

1 1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 cups sliced carrots

12 oz. pakage egg noodles

1 cup frozen peas

Place chicken, 2 teaspoons of salt, vermouth, onion, celery, garlic, parsley, thyme, bay leaf and pepper in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer.  Simmer for 1-2 hours.  Strain broth. Remove chicken meat from the bone and chop into bite size pieces.  Bring broth to a boil and add carrots.  Simmer for 5 minutes.  Add noodles to boiling broth and cook 3 minutes.  Add chicken and peas to soup and simmer until they're warm.  Test soup for salt and add more if necessary.