Chicken Noodle Soup (ATK)

• doses: 6-8 people
• tempo ativo: 30 minutes
• tempo total: 2 hours

Ingredientes

Soup

2 tablespoons chicken fat, reserved from making stock, or vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 large carrot, peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick

1 celery rib, sliced ¼ inch thick

½ teaspoon dried thyme

3 ounces egg noodles (about 2 cups)

¼ cup minced fresh parsley leaves

Stock

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 (4-pound) whole chicken, breast removed, split, and reserved; remaining chicken cut into 2-inch pieces

1 onion, chopped

2 quarts boiling water

2 teaspoons table salt

2 bay leaves

Instruções

1. For the stock: Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add half of chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer cooked chicken tobowl and repeat with remaining chicken pieces; transfer to bowl with first batch. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Return chicken pieces to pot. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until chicken releases its juices, about 20 minutes.

2. Increase heat to high; add boiling water, reserved chicken breast pieces, salt, and bay leaves. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until flavors have blended, about 20 minutes.

3. Remove breast pieces from pot. When cool, remove skin and bones from breast pieces and discard. Shred meat with your fingers or 2 forks and set aside. Strain stock through fine-mesh strainer into container, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. Allow liquid to settle for about 5 minutes and skim off fat; reserve 2 tablespoons, if desired. (Shredded chicken, strained stock, and fat can be refrigerated in separate airtight containers for up to 2 days.)

4. For the soup: Heat reserved chicken fat in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot, and celery and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add thyme and reserved stock and simmer until vegetables are tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

5. Add noodles and reserved shreddedchicken and cook until just tender, 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in parsley, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Notas

Why This Recipe Works Chicken noodle soup is one of the all-time great comfort foods, and homemade broth is a must. We wanted to make it the old-fashioned way—starting with a whole chicken. We began by cutting the chicken, minus the breast, into small pieces to be browned in batches. Cutting the bones exposed more bone marrow, key for both flavor and body. To develop additional flavor, we sweated the browned pieces in a covered pot with an onion, then simmered them for less than half an hour. Now we had a broth that just needed some salt and bay leaves to round out its flavor. We reserved some of the skimmed fat from the broth to sauté aromatics and carrots for the soup, and we added in tender chicken breast pieces that had already been poached in the broth. For extra flavor, we cooked the egg noodles right in the soup pot so they could absorb meaty flavor from the broth. With a final sprinkling of chopped parsley, our chicken noodle soup was complete: rich, homemade broth; moist pieces of chicken; tender vegetables; and perfectly cooked noodles.

Make sure to reserve the chicken breast pieces until step 2; they should not be browned. If you use a cleaver, you will be able to cut up the chicken parts quickly. A chef’s knife or kitchen shears will also work. Be sure to reserve 2 tablespoons of chicken fat for sauteing the aromatics in step 4; however, if you prefer not to use chicken fat, vegetable oil can be substituted.