The magic of Chicken Noodle Soup
" The Jewish Penicillin " ... A brief history of Chicken Noodle Soup.
I am from Central Europe, and over there Chicken Noodle Soup is a big thing. Something in between a gourmet meal (usually a starter) and a remedy.
It used to be a tradition that the first meal a woman gets after giving birth is strong chicken broth. It's nourishing , easy to digest and gives plenty of energy. Exactly what a woman needs after giving birth. When I gave birth to my son, my grandma came to the hospital with chicken soup. To keep the tradition.
The origin of this soup is Jewish but it can also be traced back to Ancient Greece and China.
Chicken noodle soup was brought to the United States by immigrants. In American popular culture, chicken soup remains the typical Jewish comfort food and a symbol of homemade Jewish cuisine that members of the community long for.
You can serve the soup as a starter but also as a main course during cold winter evenings to keep a cold at bay.
My recipe is an easy way that keeps the richness of the taste and its not so hard to buy the ingredients. You can always prepare a strong broth where you can use even chicken legs to get as much collagen into the broth as possible (your joints will be thankful for that), but for my recipe you need just one big pot to boil everything in the right order and no chicken legs. The easy way that my grandma used to cook.
Ingredients for 5l pot :
2-3 chicken legs, 2-3 chicken wings
1 large parsnip cut in half
2 large carrots cut in half
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
quarter of cup of finely chopped parsley
Pinch of pepper
4 berries of Allspice
2 bay leaves
Cup of egg noodles
- Place water, chicken, vegetables, pepper, allspice and bay leaves into large pot.
- Bring to a boil and then turn down heat so soup simmers for up to 30 minutes.
- Remove carrots and parsnip with a large slotted spoon or drain over colander into another pot. Continue to cook chicken for the next 30 min. Then remove chicken too.
- Dice carrots and parsnip and add them back to the soup together with garlic and noodles. Debone cooked chicken and nice pieces of meat put back into the pot.
- Cook on medium heat until vegetables and noodles are tender and stock is flavourful.
- In last 5 minutes add parsley.