Chick n' Noodies

Every blogger posts a recipe at some point. There are blogs out there – lots of them – that are ALL recipes, ALL the time. Some bloggers have a main blog, and then have a secondary recipes-only blog. Here’s my contribution to the occasional-recipe-within-the-blog genre.

A little history first, though. Chicken and Noodles is one of my Grammie’s specialties, and I have many happy food memories associated with this dish. The Grammie way of making chicken and noodles involves boiling a whole bird, pulling all the meat off the bone and then using the stock, and making the noodles BY HAND. Making noodles by hand requires a special touch, so the dough doesn’t get too tough (Grammie gets annoyed if you play with the dough, by the way). The dough is rolled into thin sheets, then the sheets are rolled into logs, then the logs are cut to make rolled-up bunches of noodles, then the noodles have to dry for a while (but not for too long), etc. It’s complicated. I can do it, though the pulling the meat off the bird part grosses me out. Making the noodles is time-consuming though oddly therapeutic. It’s also something I haven’t had time to do since about 1992.

Sidebar: When I was a kid, my dad’s family owned motels and restaurants. One of the restaurants served chicken and noodles as a lunch special one day each week. These noodles were very thick and wide and somewhat doughier than Grammie’s but still very satisfying. However, it’s been 25 years or so since they served those lunch specials, so no joy to be had there.

In recent years, Brother Igor, Mrs. Igor, and I have concocted an extremely lazy, extremely laissez-faire version of chicken and noodles, usually fixed as an occasional alternative to football-Sunday-chili. This don’t-tell-Grammie-‘cause-it’s-so-lame version involves several cans of canned broth, some canned chicken, and a bag or two of frozen egg noodles. Mrs. Igor usually fancies things up by serving it over mashed potatoes. I know, we’re some pathetic 30-something excuses for home cooks.

However, we’re ARE all capable cooks, and I have been making an effort to prepare, serve, and eat “more better, more homemade” food around here. Today being cold and rainy, along with my back being jacked-up and making me unwilling to do much of substance, I decided that cooking would be the productive/creative outlet of the day (and having done that, I could reasonably spend the rest of the day sitting on my ass watching TV and reading blogs and every single thing on NPR.org).

Now mind you, while I classify this as “homemade” food, it did involve some “convenience” items. Frankly, while I love Grammie-style made-from-scratch noodles, I have neither the time nor patience on the best of days, and I certainly wasn’t going to stand on a hard tile floor for the amount of time required to make those special noodles when my back is acting stupid like it is currently. Also, I do not boil whole chickens. Sorry, but UGH. And since I was out of town the last few days there were no conveniently-leftover Costco rotisserie chickens lying around either. So no “fresh” broth/stock/bird flesh. But here’s what you CAN do to make mostly-homemade and DARN YUMMY chick n’ noodies:

Get out a large stock pot and drop a stick of butter in the bottom. Turn the burner on low and let the butter start melting gently. While that’s happening, chop a smallish-medium onion up fairly finely. Toss the onion bits into the butter in the pot and stir. While the butter continues to melt and the onions begin to cook, chop – again, fairly finely – a few ribs of celery (you decide how much). Add the celery to the butter and onion, stir it all, and cook until the vegetables begin to soften.

Once the butter is melted and the vegetables are just softened, slowly pour about ¾ cup flour into the mix and stir, stir, stir. This will turn into a pasty-type stuff. Cook and stir for a few more minutes so that the flour will be well-incorporated into the butter and loses it’s “raw” smell/taste.

Now it’s time to add the liquid. I used Swanson’s broth from those giant juice box-type packages, from which there are many varieties to choose - organic, low sodium, etc. I put in a total of about 80 ounces or so. After adding the broth use a whisk and stir very thoroughly for several minutes – the butter/flour paste needs to get well-blended and there should be no traces of flour lumps in the broth. Add 1 tsp. dried dill, 1 tsp. dried basil, ½ tsp. dried thyme, ½ - 1 tsp. salt (depending on preference), and a heaping tsp. ground black pepper. Stir well to incorporate spices and then turn the heat down to a simmer.

Once the broth is simmering, chop up a few carrots – how much depends on how carroty you want your chick n’ noodies. I used about five medium carrots and chopped them pretty small. Big carrot hunks will take WAY longer to cook, so really, smaller is better. Add the carrots to the both and simmer away.

If I DID have some leftover chicken available (for example, of the aforementioned Costco rotisserie variety), I would shred it and put it in. Amount – like the carrots, depends on how chickeny you want the dish. It IS chick n’ noodies, so the more the better. Today I used three 12.5-ounce cans of Kirkland (that’s the Costco brand) canned chicken. Grammie would find this a travesty, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I opened the cans and dumped the contents into a strainer. I didn’t add the chick-liquid from the cans to my pot o- broth, but you could if you wanted. With the chicken in the strainer, I took a fork and smooshed it up so that I had small, shredded-like chicken bits. This went into the pot, everything got stirred well, and I retreated to my recliner to loaf.

Every so often the pot must be stirred (in more ways than one, but that’s another post) – for me, that was whenever I had to re-fill my glass of dietCoke/pee/let a dog out the back door. That translates to every 20 minutes or so. Just simmer everything gently until the carrots are cooked through and getting soft, much like my brain as I loafed the afternoon away.

When the carrots are soft you can add the noodles. I used two 24-ounce packages of Reames frozen egg noodles, which are the best frozen egg noodles available, in my opinion. Cut open the bags and pour the noodles into the pot straight from their frozen state. At this point you must stir fairly frequently to keep the noodles from gluing themselves together or sticking to the bottom of the pot. You may want to turn the heat up a bit in order to get the noodles to cook (the package instructions say to boil them, but you can do it without getting things that hot). Test the noodles periodically to check for doneness.

I ended up with a very thick, not-liquidy pot of chick n’ noodies. If I happened to have more broth around, I might have added a bit more toward the end. I think I’ll pop down to the store tomorrow and buy another jumbo-juice box of organic Swansons broth to add before I reheat my pot o’ noodles. All in all, it was an excellent cold-evening dinner, and the doggies enjoyed the big spoonful they got on top of their evening chow.

Oh, and a note to the Igors and my cousins who read this blog: If you tell Grammie about the bastardization of her Chicken and Noodles, I will hunt you down and twist your noses off!