Chicken Noodle Soup
Chicken Noodle Soup
From the carcass, 3 hr mostly unattended, serves 4
Ingredients
The stock chicken carcass 1, stripped onion 1, halved carrot 1 celery 1 stick bay leaves 2 peppercorns 1 tsp water to cover The soup ginger thumb, sliced garlic 3 cloves, smashed star anise 1 soy sauce 3 tbsp egg noodles 200g pak choi 2 heads, or any greens spring onions 4, sliced cooked chicken 150g, shredded
Day three of the roast chicken. Makes 3 to 4 bowls, which is what 1.5 litres of stock gets you.
Throw a pack of raw wings in with the carcass if you have them. Stock from a roasted carcass is weaker than from raw bones, so the wings fix that and give you more meat.
One star anise, not two. More than that and it tastes medicinal.
Recipe
1. Everything for the stock into the pot. Cover with cold water. No salt:
[chicken carcass 1 stripped, onion 1 halved, carrot 1, celery 1 stick, bay leaves 2, peppercorns 1 tsp, water to cover]
Never salt stock. You season the soup at the end, and if the stock reduces there is no way back.
2. Bring it up to barely a simmer, a few bubbles breaking the surface every couple of seconds. Three hours.
Do it in the oven, not on the hob, 90°C with the lid on. The oven holds steady for hours so it can’t drift into a boil, and the heat comes from all sides so nothing catches. Check after 30 minutes and drop the temperature if it is bubbling hard. A slow cooker does the same job.
Never let it boil, and don’t stir it. A hard boil churns the fat back in and shears the scum into particles too fine to strain out. Left still, the scum stays on top as a raft and the sieve catches it, which is why there is no skimming in this recipe.
3. Strain, and bin everything solid.
4. Stock back in the pot and simmer 10 minutes:
[ginger thumb sliced, garlic 3 cloves smashed, star anise 1, soy sauce 3 tbsp]
5. Noodles in their own pan.
Cook them separately. In the broth they drink it and go soggy, and any leftovers turn to porridge overnight.
6. Greens into the broth for 2 minutes. Chicken in off the heat.
7. Noodles into the bowls, broth over the top, spring onions on.
If you are not eating it the same day, chill the stock and lift the fat off as a solid disc. Easier and far more thorough than chasing it round a hot pot with a ladle.
If the stock comes out cloudy, ignore it. Clarity only matters for clear soups.
For the plain version, skip the ginger, star anise and soy. Sliced carrot, parsley and a big squeeze of lemon instead.
❄ Freezer
Freeze: the stock only, flat in bags, 6 months. Never with the noodles in.
Reheat: from frozen in a pan, then build the soup fresh from step 4.