Videos

Mother’s Cure-All: Chicken Noodle Soup and More! (video)

In honor of mother’s everywhere, we visited Chef Lisa Schroeder of Mother’s Bistro in Portland, Oregon, where she shows us how to make the quintessential Jewish penicillin: chicken noodle soup. Not only does Schroeder offer easy recipes to follow (see below), she provides shortcuts to save time and effort along the way, and delivers additional dishes for making so much more from the chicken soup stock, and a great way to create your own healthy fast-food alternatives for your family.

For Chicken Soup.

Serves 10 people.

Soup Ingredients:

  • 2 whole chickens & other carcasses, if available
  • 2 whole onions, peeled
  • 4 stalks celery
  • 4 whole carrots, peeled
  • 4 parsnips, peeled
  • 1 bunch flat leaf (Italian) parsley
  • fresh cold water to cover
  • salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
  • 2 cups finely diced carrots
  • 2 cups finely diced celery

Instructions:

  1. In a big pot, put in the chickens and vegetables (up to the diced veggies). Cover with at least 1 1/2 gallons of cold water. Bring to a boil and skim scum.
  2. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
  3. Simmer the broth, uncovered, for at least three hours. Lift the chicken from the pot and set aside until cool enough to handle.
  4. Strain the rest of the broth into a clean pot.
  5. Add the diced celery and carrots and cook until just tender.
  6. While the vegetables are cooking, pick through the chicken, trying to leave the pieces as large as possible, discarding the bones. Set aside.

To Serve Soup:

Make egg noodles or cook packaged egg noodles according to directions and set aside.
Add some of the cooked, picked chicken back to soup pot (you can make chicken salad with the rest of the boiled chicken), taste soup for seasoning.

Place noodles in serving bowls. Ladle broth, chicken and vegetables into bowls and serve.

For Chicken and Dumplings:

Roux

Ingredients:

  • half-pound unsalted butter
  • 3/4 pound flour

Instructions:

  1. While the soup is cooking, make the roux. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and mix with a whisk to ensure that there are no lumps. Cook over medium heat while stirring for about 5 minutes, until the mixture resembles sand on the beach. It should not darken. Set aside.
  2. Add the roux to the broth mixture and return to a boil while whisking to remove any lumps. Let cook for a bit to cook out the flour taste.
  3. While this is cooking, make the dumpling dough.

Dumplings

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tbsp. salt
  • 2 tbsp. finely chopped Italian parsley
  • 2 tbsp. solid shortening (like Crisco)
  • 1-1/3 cups milk

Instructions:

  1. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and parsley in a bowl.
  2. Using a pastry blender or fork, cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
    Add 1 cup of milk and stir briefly to blend. Add only enough of the remaining milk to make the dough hold together.
  3. Drop spoonfuls of dumpling dough into the rouxed broth.
  4. Cover and cook for 20 minutes (do not lift cover during cooking).

To Serve Dumplings:

Place a piece of chicken in a serving bowl. Add dumplings and broth.
Sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley and serve.

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