Chicken Soup... Not for the Soul - It's Just a Recipe

Now that I feel human again and I'm not falling asleep at my keyboard, here's the recipe I used to make the chicken soup. 

It's actually 2 recipes - sorta - combined.  The first part comes from one of my new books called The Slow Cooker Ready and Waiting Cookbook by Rick Rodgers.  I was immediately impressed that he had written part of his own blurb on Amazon.

Controversial or not, I refuse to pretend that slow-cooked food prepared by the typical "dump in the pot" method is as good as my (admittedly longer) technique. My experience as a professional cook showed that the old method is a sure way to waste groceries and time.

On reading his recipes, I admit to nodding my head and agreeing that a little extra work would certainly make many crockpot dinners so much more flavorful.

But - there is not really a chicken soup recipe.  (he has stock making recipes, not quite what I wanted, but I wished I had some of that stock when I was finishing up the soup at the end... next time)

That left me searching the internet, where I came across this recipe:

Great Aunt Nina's Chicken and Noodles

After reading through it, and the comments - I started putting the 2 types of cooking together and decided to try it out.  To keep this from becoming book length on the front page - I'm putting the recipe below the fold. 

Chicken Noodle soup - annotated (because I'm going to comment as I go) - veggie amounts are what I used - you can change things as you like, use other veggies...be creative.

• 1/2 bag baby carrots, chopped in to bite sized pieces (I prefer baby carrots to regular)
  
• 1 onion, diced  (I don't like large hunks of onion - if you do, slice or chop larger)
  
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 hand fulls fresh green beans chopped
  
• 1 whole chicken cut up (I used 6 chicken thighs instead)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup white wine (I used Pinot Grigio)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 bay leaf
  
• 2 qts chicken broth
  

Because white meat cooks much faster and dries out quicker than dark meat, if you want to use white meat only, I'll give an opinion later on cooking time based on the dark meat I used YMMV***.  I happen to like dark meat because it doesn't dry out so easily - personal preference.

First I diced the onion, sliced the celery into fairly small pieces, and chopped the baby carrots and green beans into bite sized pieces.  When chopping, keep in mind how it will fit on a spoon when you're eating it later - large pieces might "look" neat, but are more difficult to eat without a fork.

Then I hauled out my large frying pan and heated it with enough olive oil (once again my preference for vegetable oil) to coat the bottom.  I put the chicken pieces in, skin side down and browned them on that one side only!  About 3 minutes maybe 4 or 5 depending on your cooktop, it takes a bit longer on an electric top. 

After removing the chicken - which I did in 2 batches so it wasn't too crowded.  Then I dumped in the onion and celery and sauteed until the onion was translucent.  (sadly I forgot to pick up more garlic - or I would have added a couple of crushed cloves at this point too, oh well... next time)

While the veggies were cooking I salted and peppered the meat.  I did NOT saute the carrots because they were chunky rather than the flat rounds you get when chopping up the large carrots and I figured it probably wouldn't matter. As for the green beans, I was afraid sauteeing would make them fall apart, so I didn't.

At this point, I turned the crock on low, I dumped the veggies from the fry pan into the crock, added the carrots, green beans, the bay leaf, and stacked the chicken (skin side down) over the veggies.  Then I sprinkled the top with the basil and poured in the wine.  Cover... and leave it alone for 6 hours.  DO NOT LIFT THE LID or you will have to add cooking time on to the process as the whole point is keeping the heat in the pot!

*** if you use a whole chicken - be sure to put the white meat on top!  If you use only white meat, I would remove it after 4.5-5 hours and let it cool.  Let the veggies continue to cook until the 6 hour mark - since they're veggies they should finish up without adding extra time for opening the lid.

After 6 hours (with dark meat or whole chicken), remove the chicken to a platter to cool, remove the veggies to a bowl and set aside.  When doing this, what I really needed was a strainer like this what I had was a slotted spoon... takes a while and is messy. Heh.

Now, the bay leaf can be removed and the liquid is poured into a large pot... I used my 5 quart Le Creuset Dutch oven because I don't own a stock pot.  Then I added the 2 quart box of chicken broth, turned on the heat and brought it to a boil.  (no I did not remove the excess chicken fat... I don't know if it's because I used only the chicken thighs - but there wasn't much fat in the crockpot stock)

There are 2 schools of thought on the noodles - some people like to cook them separately and keep them separate so they don't disintegrate in the leftover soup... if this is the case, cook the noodles you want to add in a separate pot, place them in your bowl and ladle the soup over them.
 
If you're like me and don't care... I added about 8 ounces of the Pennsylvania Dutch medium egg noodles to the broth and let them simmer for 7 minutes. (this was a little too many noodles - I would go for about 6 oz. next time)  In the meantime, I chopped up the chicken removing the skin and bones (and yes, burning my fingers in the process a bit I always do).  After the noodles are done cooking, the veggies and chicken are added back in, add salt and pepper to taste.

That's it.  Eat! Enjoy!

For us, the noodles held up very well and didn't fall apart at all on reheating. I did have to add nearly an entire 2nd box of chicken broth the next day though to have "soup" again along with more salt and pepper... otherwise the broth soaks into the noodles and veggies - nearly stew-like. 

If you wanted to make it with rice - you'd have to try and gauge how much you need.  I would think it would be about 1.5 cups uncooked.  Other veggies can be added depending on what you like.  This was VERY filling - the soup with bread was more than enough for dinner! 

There you have it.  My venture into crockpot cooking that is not pot roast.  I really do want to make stock from the recipes in my cookbook - that would be a huge improvement on boxed  in the next recipe.

Now go forth and slow cook!

Posted by: Teresa in Food and Drink at 07:46 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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