Grandma Frank's chicken noodle soup

In these difficult times, sometimes what we really need is a big bowl of comfort food. What could be better than a big bowl of Grandma’s chicken noodle soup? Plus, it may or may not cure COVID-19.

• Well, OK, maybe not, but it sure is a great cure for the winter blues. I learned this from my grandma and my mom when I was little, and it is one of my absolute favorite soups. Of course, Grandma would go out to the coop with a hatchet and ahemprepare the chicken and make the stock, but we are going to take an easier route. Let’s get started.

Egg Noodles:•2 cups all-purpose flour

•½ teaspoon salt

•3 slightly beaten eggs

•¼ cup water

Mix the salt and flour in a medium bowl, make a depression in the center, pour the eggs into the well and mix gently with a fork. Gently pull in a little flour at a time in a circular motion until all the egg is incorporated, then add a little water at a time.

You will end up with a fairly sticky dough and a bit of flour left — turn the dough out onto your work surface and knead it until all the dry is incorporated. You don’t want to overmix the dough, or your noodles will be tough, get it to the point that it all comes together into a ball with no extra flour left. To get the best noodles, we want to let the dough rest, so wrap it in some plastic wrap and set it in the refrigerator for about a half an hour or so. This lets the gluten in the flour modify and relax.

Now we are going to start our soup base, and we are going to use some great fresh veggies. We want to leave the veggies in somewhat larger pieces, so they fit on the spoon, but not so large that you need a fork! We’re going to cut the carrots, and celery in half lengthwise and then cut into ¼-inch slices, the onion, and potato should be in ½-inch cubes. The onion will break apart once we start to cook it, so we will end up with nice sized bites. This is my Grandma Frank’s recipe that she brought over from Russia, so exact sizes are not super important, just make it close.

You will often hear the mix of onion, celery and carrot referred to as mirepoix (meer-a pwah) just so you know.

Soup Base:•1 medium onion, chopped

•2 cups chopped celery

•2 cups chopped carrot

•1 tablespoon oil

•2 tablespoons butter

•2 medium potatoes, diced into ½-inch cubes

•12 cups water

•1/3 cup ‘better than bouillon’ chicken base

•1 rotisserie chicken- deboned and torn into 1-inch pieces (bite sized)

•1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

•1 teaspoon pepper

•1/8 teaspoon turmeric

•1/8 teaspoon celery salt

•½ cup chopped parsley

•2 cups chicken stock (reserve)

Start by putting your water in a medium stock pot, add the chicken base and the potatoes and bring to a low boil. In a large sauté pan, add the oil, butter, onions, carrots and celery and season with the poultry seasoning, pepper, turmeric and celery salt. Cook this until the veggies just very lightly start to brown and add the veggies to the water. Reduce the heat to a simmer.

Now we will take our rested noodle dough out and begin to make our homemade noodles. Liberally dust your workspace with flour and work the dough into a cylinder about an inch thick. Dust it with flour. This will keep the rolling pin from sticking. Now use your rolling pin and roll it out into a long rectangle, roughly an 1/8-inch thick, we want the dough fairly thin.

As you are rolling the dough out keep it dusted with flour on both sides so the rolling pin doesn’t stick and it doesn’t stick to your work surface Now if you happen to have a pasta maker that you can roll this out on, that is fine, just don’t overwork the dough. Now we will cut our noodles.

Fold your sheet in half (so it is 4 inches by 24) and cut into strips about ¼-inch wide. The nice thing about this is that if you like a wider noodle or a narrower noodle, you can adapt it as you want, but be aware that these noodles will puff up a bit, so be aware that you may end up with giant dough balls if you don’t get it thin enough, and it may break into pieces if it’s too narrow.

Our next step is to turn the heat up on the soup base until it comes to a boil. This is where we add our cooked chicken (this is so it doesn’t overcook and still has that nice roasted flavor). Now add your noodles. You want to spread them out as you put them in so that they don’t clump. Stir gently. Let them boil for a minute or two, then reduce the heat to a simmer and add the chopped parsley. Since these noodles get nice and puffy, you will want to add the 2 cups of stock to give you more broth. Now get a loaf of crusty bread and a big spoon and dish out some great memories. This serves a family of six, because everyone will want seconds.

Until next time. Genieße dein Essen.