Category Archives: soup

Short Cut, Long Cut Chicken Noodle

I call it short cut because we don’t make the broth ourselves and we use leftover Costco roast chicken. I call it long cut because we make our own noodles from scratch.

Ingredients:
6 cups of chicken broth or stock
2 cups water
cooking oil
1/2 onion, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 next-day roast chicken
salt and pepper to taste

For the pasta:
2 cups white flour, plus extra
1 tbs. warm water
3 eggs
pinch of salt

Directions:
Place the flour and salt in a mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the water and eggs and beat with a fork. Slowly incorporate the flour till you have a dough. Mix in as much flour as you can while kneading. Your dough should be elastic but not sticky. Cover the ball of dough and set aside.

Meanwhile, add the onion, celery and carrot to a large saucepan and drizzle in some cooking oil. Cook over med-high heat, stirring occasionally, till onions are translucent — about 10 minutes.
While veggies cook, salvage as much chicken meat from your leftover roast chicken. Don’t forget about the meat on the bottom of the bird.

Add the broth, water and chicken. Salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer and turn heat to med-low.

Now roll out the pasta with your pasta maker. Run a lemon-sized piece of dough through the largest setting. Fold it in half and flour the outsides if it’s sticky. Run through again. Do this about eight times on the biggest setting. Change to the next setting and run dough through once. Do this till you get to the “6” setting. Lay dough on a floured surface.

Do this step again with lemon-sized pieces of dough until it’s all pressed out. Dust noodles with flour and loosely roll up each one. Slice into wide noodles, then determine how long you want the noodles to be and cut to your preferred length.

When all the noodles are cut, add them to the soup. Turn heat to high and return to a boil. Cook for about 5 minutes or until noodles are al dente. They will cook more as the soup cools.

Enjoy!

Cream of Porcini Mushroom Soup

Serves about 5
Ingredients:
2 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
6 oz. fresh button mushrooms
6 oz. fresh cremini mushrooms
3 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup white wine
1 teaspoon porcini powder (optional; found at specialty spice shops)
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
liberal amount of freshly ground pepper
1 cup half and half
3 tablespoons fresh italian parsley, chopped

In a small saucepan, add the dried mushrooms and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, turn heat to med/low and simmer 20 minutes. Blend with a hand blender or transfer to a blender.
Remove the stems from the fresh mushrooms and give them about 6 pulses in a food processor (till well chopped). Slice the caps.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the caps and stems. Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the mushrooms’ liquid has evaporated, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
Add the wine and scrape up the bottom of the pan. Bring to a simmer and add the porcini/stock mixture, the porcini powder, the thyme, salt and pepper. Let simmer on med/low heat for 10 minutes.
Add the half and half and the parsley and let simmer 10 minutes.
Serve with warm crusty bread.