Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes (probably about 2 hours in the future)
Cost: ~$5 for 6-8 large bowls
Drew's Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
It was really good... but not oh my god wow.
Sara's Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
Awesome. I can't think how this would be improved. Best chicken noodle soup ever.
First recipe out of the gate, and Drew is 45 minutes late to the show. Men! So I figured I would show him how amazing I am and I popped open the book ready to start. Aaaand I'm cutting up a whole chicken. For someone who is the champion of the boneless, skinless chicken breast, this was a daunting task. I thought to myself, we've cut up a turkey for Thanksgiving... this will be no problem. I easily cut apart the wings and legs, and only moderately struggled cutting out the back. And suddenly I was left with a dilemma. The recipe said to split the breast.
Multiple attempts at cracking the breastbone, cursing, and considering buying a cleaver ensue.
About 30 minutes later I have finally split the chicken breast just in time for hubby to come down and cheerily join the project. In case you are ever faced with a similar task, just cut about a 1/2 inch into the base of the breast bone (it looks quite hard, but our chef's knife had no problem) and snap in half. 3 second project that took me half an hour just for not knowing to cut that slit. Thank you to this YouTube video for finally cluing me in.
The next difficulty came when it was time to brown the chicken pieces. I have never ever had something splatter so much oil as this chicken. Pieces were all browned 5 minutes a side in 2 batches, and for an entire 20 minutes that pot crackled and spluttered and made our kitchen an oily mess. Turning the pieces involved using the lid of the dutch oven as a shield while I tentatively poked my arm with the tongs into the pot. Somehow I still got hot oil splattered on my knuckles... the knuckles holding the pot lid. I swear the oil was doing 90 degree turns in mid air. Drew took his turn flipping and managed to get hot oil in his eye.
After the oil drama, things were much easier. The browned chicken and lots of onion made a totally fantastic chicken stock. If you have never made homemade chicken stock, do it. The chicken-y smell coming from the pot while everything cooked was FANTASTIC and I have definitely never had that great a smell from boxed or canned broth.
* A note for anyone who tries this: the recipe calls for saving a couple of tablespoons of fat from skimming off the top of the stock (to use in cooking the veggies for the soup), but our stock had very little fat floating up. We had to supplement with vegetable oil.
* Another note: the recipe calls for discarding the chicken pieces (other than the breast) after you make the stock. You can easily save the large leg/wing pieces for another use. We’re thinking of shredding the meat up for some tasty tacos.
The soup was a simple matter of cooking some onions, celery and carrot in that yummy chicken fat, and then adding in the stock, some noodles and shredded breast meat (cooked in the stock). It takes less than a half hour to make the soup, if you make the stock portion in advance.
Overall a great recipe, and while the stock takes some time, it is totally worthwhile. It only costs about $5 for all the ingredients, and you end up with two quarts of stock (a 1 quart box in the grocery runs around $3) in addition to the chicken itself.
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