Sunday, September 19, 2010

Chicken Noodle Soup

I spend one day concentrating on making the broth. Than the next day, I make the soup. I like spending an entire day concentrating on the broth because the longer you simmer it, the more it will reduce, get darker and become very flavorful.

PART #1/DAY #1:

1. I took a small carcass from the freezer from a bird I roasted in the near past. The birds we buy are small, so the carcass was small. I usually also use some chicken parts. I sometimes will just add left over chicken bones and a few times, I added two legs and two thighs including the chicken.

2. To the pan, I added the following: carrots, onions, parsnips, red onions, celery, chives, 2 bay leaves, 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 tablespoon of peppercorns. You can add anything you want. Sometimes I add Bok Choy and Leeks. Throwing in some fresh herbs if you have them is an excellent idea.
Some people sometimes add cloves and/or Cinnamon Sticks for a different twist.

4. Add water to the pan. I usually fill it close to the 8 quart mark.
5. Bring to a boil. That took awhile. : )
6. Put back down to simmer and cooked with cover on for a good 2 hours.
7. Cooked with cover off for another 3-6 hours. This is where it's suppose to reduce and darken and intensify.
8. Strain, cool off and put in refrigerator. From what I understand, since this broth was cooked for so long - nothing in there has any or much flavor since all the flavor is in the YUMMY BROTH. We are not talking about cooking broth for 2-3 hours, we are talking about a good 6 hours or more. SO after straining everything gets discarded. Some would try to save the chicken and do something with it, but you'd have to mix it with a lot of salsa or mayo for example for it to be any good.

TWO/DAY #2


PART TWO/DAY #2: THE SOUP


1. Take layer of fat off the best I could the next morning.
2. Heated 2 tablespoons of butter and a few tablespoons of oil in a pan.
3. Add chopped onions and let cook for about 5 minutes. Add some salt and pepper.
4. Add some garlic and cook for a minute. I than add my new secret ingredient - 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of tomatoe paste.
5. Chop and peel carrots and potatoes. Add those to the pan. I like to cut everything nice and small. Let cook until carrots and potatoes start feeling tender.

*Note*. Of course peeling and chopping the onions, carrots, and potatoes ahead of time is highly advised.

6. Add broth from the night before. Throw in one peeled and leafy celery.
7. Bring to boil.
8. Once it's boiling - add some pasta if you'd like. I like adding Orzo. Be careful about putting in too much pasta. I have made that mistake many times. It will eat up your broth if you put too much in. Cook as long as it takes for the pasta to be done and your pretty much done at that point.
9. Add some parsley and/or Thyme depending on your tastes and more salt and pepper. 10 You can also add some frozen corn and/or peas toward the end.
11. Lastly, add pre-cooked and chopped chicken. Left over chicken from your roast where the carcass came from would be great. If not, any left over chicken.

You want to add enough broth in step #6 to handle the pasta and all the food, because some of it will reduce from the boiling and the pasta and vegetables will swell a little.



Sunday, September 12, 2010

Five spice braised chicken

This recipe is a BIG keeper. Thanks Chez Pim.
The recipe is served with egg noodles, but I used rice instead. I cooked some rice directly in the juices after taking the chicken out. WOW. My husband said he liked the rice the best. : ). I'm happy that I was able to learn a new way to cook chicken. I didn't have as much chicken as it called for, so I decreased some of the ingredients just a tad.

Recipe here

As you know from previous posts, I'm without a camara. I don't want to not blog at all, so I'll have to come back and post pictures later. The camera I'm interested in is $350.00 and I don't have the money for one right now. I'm hoping family can pool resources together for a combo Birthday/Christmas gift. : )

Friday, September 3, 2010

Mini SpareRibs braised in black bean sauce

Mini SpareRibs braised in black bean sauce:


I made this prior to a camping trip I went on this summer. Than I just heated up the ribs on the grill and heated up some of the extra sauce in a pan - on the grill.

WoW, this is really good. Strong flavors and the ribs were so good. This is something I would think about making for company. It's really impressive. The only down-fall was it cost a pretty penny to buy the ribs all cut up like that from the butcher.

dragonladykitchen.com where I got this recipe is another website I have on my favorites. I did try her sesame noodles and cooling off with cucumber recipes, which were good. I thought the cucumber was too strong from the soy sauce though. Anyways, back to the ribs. Some-day when I make them again, I'll have to remember to take a picture. For now, my blog is getting too outdated and I'm falling behind with sharing some awesome recipes. So here is my boring picture-less blog entry for Dragon Lady's Mini Spareribs braised in black bean sauce.

I also - tried cooking with black bean sauce for the first time, so that was kind of neat. Bonus: Since I picked up baby bok choy from the farmer this summer - I found another way to use the black bean sauce. See recipe here and very simple and very!! good.

Bonus Recipe:

Chorizo and Chickpea Stew

I'm really falling behind with posting oh so yummy recipe's on my blog. It doesn't help that my camara died when I dropped it in the river back in July. I've been using my blackberry camara, which actually isn't too bad. Here is a link to a recipe I tried. My husband and I absolutely loved it. Needless to say, we gobbled up this recipe before I got a chance to take any pictures. Of course rushing to eat my supper every night so I can tend to the needs of my kids contributes toward me forgetting to take pictures. I will make this again, so I'll update this later with a picture.

Back to the recipe: When I made this, I also happen to have a real yummy batch of homemade chicken stock, which I'm sure helped make the recipe yummy. I didn't have enough of the homemade chicken stock for what the recipe called for, so I used 1/2 of that and 1/2 broth from the cans.

I also just mixed in bacon (instead of perchuitto) and the hard boiled egg into the entire soup at the end, instead of individually.

Thank you Claire from foodjunta

LINK HERE

I'd also like to note that food junta is one of my new favorite blog sites. I feel comfortable using there site and I've tried a few recipes from the site already.

Each person who contributes tells a nice story, the pictures are great and most of the recipes look really good, some nice and simple too.