Homemade Chicken and Noodles......Goodwife Style!

Yesterday while we were getting blasted with ice, snow, and sleet all at the same time, I decided it was a good day for chicken and noodles.  The Man had to go in at 3:30 AM and was on his way back home at around 8:30 AM cuz it was just way too nasty for his guys to be on the road, but that's neither here nor there.........

Anywho, we raise and butcher Cornish X (otherwise known as Creepy Meat Chickens by OFG) chickens every year.  These chickens are a HYBRID bird.  They are not genetically altered, they are just the product of hybridization and they grow fast and are delicious.  If you feed them right you won't have any problems with them, we never have and we've been raising them for years.  (Lordamercy, here I go runnin' round the trailer park again, you know I can't help myself!) 

ANYWAY, we raise 25 of these birds to put in the freezer every year.  When we butcher them, we skin them, cuz it's easier and faster.  Then we part them up and package them that way.  We also debone the breasts.  Chickens have two breasts just like we do and one of these breasts will serve our whole family!  Late last week I took a package of thighs out of the freezer intending to cook them for supper.  Well that never happened so I told The Youngun I'd make her some chicken and noodles.  So.........here we go!

Take 3 thighs and dump them in a pan and fill 'er up with water.  The pan I'm using is a 3qt pan....

K, now the way I get really good, rich, chicken brothy flavor is this.....I put this pan on my biggest burner and set that flame to high.  This gets it boiling like mad.  I put in my seasonings, in this case, garlic, pepper, salt and some celery seed, then just let it boil like crazy.  As it boils the liquid will go down, so I just put more water in, then let it boil down again, and add more water.  The more times you do this; boiling down and adding more water, the richer and more concentrated your broth will be.  I never time anything so I'm not sure how long these boiled, but I'd say a good 2 hours anyway.  I leave the bones in the pot even after the thighs are done, then right before I'm ready to add my noodles, I'll fish 'round in there and pull out the bones.

Now on to the noodles.....Gran'ma taught me to make noodles before she died.  I don't remember how old I was, but I'm grateful that she taught me and this is the only way I've ever made them.  They are yummy, so why mess with a good thing right? 

You can make these with however many eggs you want.  If I'm just making a little batch for The Youngun to eat, I'll use one egg.  Today I used three......

Now, since The Crisis (which you can read about here and here as well as here, if you've a mind to) I've been bird-less but our little Mom and Pop grocery store sells Muscovy duck eggs for 75 cents a dozen.  Duck eggs make yuumy noodles!  The two eggs up top are duck eggs and the bottom egg is a chicken egg......

Add in a little bit of salt if you want to and then you are gonna want to take a fork and whip the daylights outta those eggs, leaving you with this.....

Then you are going to add in some flour......how much?  Heck I don't know, I started with about a cup.  You dump it in and stir it round with your fork until it kinda hangs together.  I mixed white and wheat flour today.  I'd say I prob'ly used a cup of white and 1/2 cup of whole wheat but I'm really not sure.  I suppose I should've paid attention if I wanted to do a blog post, but what's the fun in that I ask you??  Once your dough will kinda follow your fork around in your bowl you are gonna dump it out on a really well floured counter top.  This dough will be quite wet, but that's ok........

Now, knead it a few times until it's nice and soft but not dry.  It is still going to be pretty wet.  Then add more flour to your counter and to the top of your dough.......

And pat it out sort of flat..........

Then get out your trusty rollin' pin and roll it out.  I roll it, then flip it over, then roll it.  This ensures that you've got enough flour on your counter and on top of the dough.  You don't want the flour to work into the dough, it's just there to keep it from stickin' to your pin or the counter.........

Once you've got it rolled out pretty thin (this will puff up, so you don't want to leave it very thick, unless you want really thick noodles) you are gonna cut them noodles up.  I use a pizza cutter.  I have a noodle cutter, but the noodles tend to just gum up in it and for me a pizza cutter is the easiest way.  Gran'ma used a butter knife to cut hers....... 

Here we are all cut up and ready to cook.  Now, you can make these far ahead and let them dry but you don't have to.  I don't let them dry at all, just whip them up, scoop them up with my hands, and toss 'em in the pot of boiling broth........ 

Here we are in the broth.  See how much they puff up?  Looks good no?

You then let them simmer for about 30 minutes or so.  It depends on how you like them.  We like them firm but not hard if you get what I'm sayin'.....

Mmmmmm..... chicken noodly goodness!

There you have it!  Chicken Noodles Ala the Goodwife and Gran'ma!  Now go make somethin' in your kitchen!!

I pray that you are all safe and snug.  We are really getting blasted with a vicious winter storm here in Southern Illinois!

God Bless...............