Mom's Chicken Noodle Soup

 

With a quart and a half of homemade chicken stock at hand we can move on to finishing the soup. This soup is soup is fashioned after my mother’s. It is meant to be the main course. She served it with home made bread and cheddar cheese on the side. It is about half broth and the balance is a combination of vegetables, chicken and noodles. By volume the finished soup yields about three quarts, and with the bread and cheese, enough to satisfy eight hungry diners. This is the stuff of a peasant’s feast – the crown jewel of an informal dinner party. (Note: The noodles in this soup are egg dumplings—essentially a dropped egg noodles. This is a topic for the future. For the following recipe, dried noodles are fine. No need to overwhelm anyone.)

To finish the soup you will need:

6 carrots

3 ribs of celery

1 medium onion

½ of a cooked chicken.

The above cut into bite sized pieces.

12 ounces of dried noodles cooked el dente.

Bring the stock and the water to cook the noodles to boil. Add the chicken and vegetables to stock reduce the heat to a very slow boil. Add the noodles to water again reduce to a slow boil. The noodles and vegetables should be done at about the same time. Then simply drain the noodles and add them to the soup. Adjust the seasoning with thyme, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

In this soup, we have created an ordinary household meal, common fifty or sixty years ago before the advent industrial agriculture and before our grocers’ shelves became packed with commercial food products. Its roots are in the home economy. In total our informal diner for eight can be served up for about a buck a person, not including the cost of the beverages. If we add in the cost of a decent dry white wine we can amply feed and drink our dinner guests for around seven bucks a head.

The homemade soup, with good bread, good cheese and good wine has informal gathering writ large across it. From that it is a glue that binds family, friends and neighbors. This simple soup and meals like it are one of the building blocks of family, community and gentle society. It starts with a whole chicken.