"Anyone that doesn't agree with leggings as pants can physically fight me.
And I'm going to win because I have a full range of motion due to the fact that I am wearing leggings as pants."

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Homemade Chicken and Noodles Recipe

The night before we did the Walk/Run, I made up a batch of my Grandma's chicken and noodles. We were carbo-loading and, believe me, these do the trick.

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The traditional way (in our family) to serve these is spooned over a big bowl of mashed potatoes and topped with cooked corn. Now, that's a plateful of carbs. A bit unnecessary, though, considering that we only walked the 5K.

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I learned this recipe from my Grandma Gay; she began teaching us granddaughters how to roll out the noodles (with dowels) when we were 5 or so. I think that she made this (or our other favorite- homemade mac and cheese) literally every time we visited for dinner. Until I was 10, I thought that's all that Grandma and Grandpa ever ate. I wished I lived there.

That's me in the blue shirt. Jenny's the towhead second from the left.

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And this is our Grandma, several years later, helping one of our younger cousins roll some noodles.

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This is the ratio of ingredients for the noodles. It's so easy that after you make it once or twice, I'm sure you'll have it memorized.

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Ingredients for a batch to feed about 8 people
2 cups flour
1 largish pinch of salt
4 eggs
chicken broth (4 to 6 cups depending on whether you want actual soup or just a pile of noodles)
chicken (either precooked rotisserie, chicken breasts or whole chicken-> from easiest to most difficult)

Instructions
1- Bring broth to a boil. Add the raw chicken (if using).
2- Mix salt in with flour in mediumish/largish bowl.
3- Make well in the center of flour (like you do in mashed potatoes to hold the gravy) and crack eggs into it.
4- With your fingers, break up the yolks and mix the eggs.
5- Begin incorporating the flour into the eggs as you swirl your fingers in a circle.
6- Mix, squish and knead with fingers only until all the flour is completely mixed in and holds together (don't overmix or it gets really hard to roll out).

(video for mixing dough- and that phone ringing is on the video, not at your house)
7- Cut dough in half.
8- Roll out to about 1/8th inch thick (they get thicker as they cook) on a floured surface.
9- Cut noodles as shown below or follow noodle cutting instructions here and set out to dry.

(video for cutting noodles)
10- When chicken is completely cooked, pull it out (that is if you added it raw earlier... skip this if you're using rotisserie), let cool and then shred it into bite sized pieces while noodles are cooking.
11- Bring broth back to a boil, add noodles and cook until tender (about 15 to 20 minutes at High Altitude).
12- Add shredded chicken to pot. Season with salt as necessary.
13- Spoon over a plate of as much starch as you can find (mashed potatoes) and then top with more starch (corn).
14- Run marathon within 24 hours.

Yumm!

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Related Posts-
Hand Cut Noodles

4 comments:

Angeleen said...

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

Considering I have never met a carbhydrate I didn't LOVE, that pot o' noodles has me swooning!

Luscious.

I may need to make that this weekend.

Thanks for sharing! Though, I hope you won't hold me to the "run a marathon" directive. Is it okay if I just use all those lovely carbs to pad my already ample fanny?

Elora said...

really excited by homemade pasta of any kind and since its got cold again i become a bit soup mad so will have to give this a go.

Andrea said...

I was looking for a guide to remind me how to make MY great grandmother's chicken and noodles and I'm thrilled to see it - exactly as I remember- here. We eat it over a heaping pile of mashed potatoes as well. I thought we were the only family, but thank goodness we are not. This is the best food on earth.

Unknown said...

Oh my goodness, i made this tonight for dinner and it was a hit. Thank you soo much.