| Chicken Noodle Soup - New Orleans Style |
| Chicken Noodle Soup - New Orleans Style |
Go ahead and get messy with this one. It's as much fun to
prepare as it is to eat. |
| Ingredients |
- 1 lg whole fryer
- 1 c onions; diced
- 1/2 c celery; diced
- 1/2 c parsley; minced
- 4 Garlic clove; garlic
- 1 c carrots; chopped
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 ts poultry seasoning
- 4 qt Water
- 12 oz broad egg noodles
- 2 T butter
- 1 c onion rings; sliced
- 1 c mushrooms; sliced
- 1 c carrots; diced
- 1/4 c cream sherry
- Salt & pepper; to taste
- Scallions; for garnish
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| Cooking
Instructions |
- First, take the chicken and wash it thoroughly. Remove the giblets, scrub out the insides with
cold running water. (But DO NOT remove the chicken skin or any of the fat! You need the
skin to make a rich stock.)
- Next, take a crock pot and place the chicken and giblets into it. Then drop in the diced onions,
the 1/2 c of celery, the 1/2 c of minced parsley, the garlic, chopped carrots and bay
leaves, poultry seasoning and about 2 quarts of water. Then, with a spoon, evenly
distribute the seasoning mixture around the chicken, turn the crock pot to high, and cook
for at least six hours to eight hours. The longer you cook the richer the base stock and
the more tender the chicken.
- While the chicken is slow-cooking, it's a time to prepare the noodles. Prepare them according to
package directions... but DO NOT COOK THEM UNTIL DONE! Keep in mind that you're going to
drop them into a soup, so you want them el dente (firm), otherwise they'll turn to pure
mush by the time you eat them. Furthermore, you want a small percent of the starch in the
noodles to cook into the soup to thicken it slightly. If you cook the noodles all the way,
the soup's consistency will be flat and thin.
- After the noodles are cooked, butter them slightly and set aside.
- When the chicken is tender, take a set of tongs or a strainer spoon, remove it from the crock pot
(it may tend to fall apart, but that's okay), and set it on a platter to cool. At this
point, strain out all the seasoning vegetables from the stock, place the stock into a
metal bowl, and place the bowl into the refrigerator or freezer until the chicken fat
congeals (which should take about 1 hour). Meanwhile, pick the chicken off the bones and,
with a sharp knife, chop it into bit-sized pieces.
- Then, in a heavy 12-inch skillet, melt the butter and sauté the sliced onions, mushrooms, and
carrots until they're tender. Then drop in the chopped chicken meat. And over medium-low
heat, cook it into the vegetables for about 10 minutes.
- While the chicken and vegetables are sautéing, remove the chicken stock from the refrigerator,
skim off all the fat, and place the skimmed stock into a soup pot, along with the
remaining 2 quarts of water. At this point, you should season the soup stock to taste with
salt and pepper.
- Now drop in the sautéed chicken, mushrooms, onion rings and diced carrots -- along with the sherry,
the Tabasco*, and as soon as it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer the
soup for about 30 minutes to allow all the flavors to thoroughly blend.
- When you're ready to eat, ladle out heaping helpings of the piping hot soup into bowls, garnish
with a sprinkling of thinly sliced green onions, and serve with crunch saltines.
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| Comments |
Serves about six. |
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